Title page for ETD etd-4019122049721391

Type of Document

Master's Thesis

Author

Dotson, Paul Randolph Jr.

Author's Email Address

rand@vt.edu

URN

etd-4019122049721391

Title

Sisson's Kingdom: Loyalty Divisions in Floyd County, Virginia, 1861-1865

Degree

Master of Arts

Department

History

Advisory Committee

Advisor Name	Title
Dr. Crandall A. Shifflett	Committee Chair
Dr. James I. Robertson, Jr.	none
Dr. Peter Wallenstein	none

Keywords

appalachia
desertion
floyd county
civil war
unionism

Date of Defense

1997-05-01

Availability

unrestricted

Abstract

"Sisson's Kingdom" uses a community study

paradigm to offer an interpretation of the

Confederate homefront collapse of Floyd

County, Virginia. The study focuses primarily

on residents' conflicting loyalty choices during

the war, and attempts to explain the myriad of

ways that their discord operated to remove

Floyd County as a positive portion of the

Confederate homefront. The study separates

the "active Confederate disloyalty" of Floyd

County's Unionist inhabitants from the

"passive Confederate disloyalty" of relatives

or friends of local Confederate deserters. It

then explores the conflicting loyalties of the

county's pro-Confederates, Unionists, and

passive disloyalists, seeking to understand

better the wide variety of loyalty choices

available to residents as well as the

consequences of their choices. To determine

some of the significant factors contributing to

the Floyd County community's response to

the Confederacy and Civil War, this thesis

documents the various ways residents'

reactions took shape. Chapter One examines

the roots of these decisions, exploring briefly

Floyd County's entrance into Virginia's market

economy during the 1850s and its residents'

conflicting choices during Virginia's secession

crisis. In the aftermath of secession, many

Floyd residents embraced their new

Confederate government and enlisted by the

hundreds in its military units. The decision by

some county soldiers to desert their units and

return to Floyd caused loyalty conflicts

between their supporters and the county's

pro-Confederates. This conflict, and the

effects of deserters living in the Floyd

community, are both explored in Chapter

Two. Floyd's Unionist population and its loyal

Confederate residents clashed violently

throughout much of the war, hastening the

disintegration of the Floyd homefront. Their

discord is examined in Chapter Three.

Files

Filename		Size	Approximate Download Time (Hours:Minutes:Seconds)
Filename		Size	28.8 Modem	56K Modem	ISDN (64 Kb)	ISDN (128 Kb)	Higher-speed Access
	BIBLIOGRAPHY.PDF	38.02 Kb	00:00:10	00:00:05	00:00:04	00:00:02	< 00:00:01
	CHAPTER1.PDF	668.40 Kb	00:03:05	00:01:35	00:01:23	00:00:41	00:00:03
	CHAPTER2.PDF	85.47 Kb	00:00:23	00:00:12	00:00:10	00:00:05	< 00:00:01
	CHAPTER3.PDF	551.63 Kb	00:02:33	00:01:18	00:01:08	00:00:34	00:00:02
	CONCLUSION.PDF	66.27 Kb	00:00:18	00:00:09	00:00:08	00:00:04	< 00:00:01
	ETD.PDF	53.70 Kb	00:00:14	00:00:07	00:00:06	00:00:03	< 00:00:01