Red Strings (American politics)
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The Red Strings or the Heroes of America were a Southern peace society in the Confederacy during the American Civil War.
They favored peace, reunion, and the defeat of the Confederacy. They began early in the war as a group of Unionists and Quakers in the piedmont regions of North Carolina and Virginia where few slaves were.
They wore red strings on their lapels or hung them outside of their windows to distinguish themselves from the rebels. Their organization was completely decentralized, and most knew only one other member for certain; most of their anti-Confederate activities were carried out in secret.
Some estimate that by the war's end, as many as 10,000 people belonged to the Red Strings. They were comparably as disruptive to the Southern war effort as the Copperheads were to the Union.
After the war, they actively opposed the Ku Klux Klan.
External links and references
- A site on the Red Strings (http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~ncuv/honey1.htm)
- Another site on the Red Strings (http://spec.lib.vt.edu/bicent/recoll/histbook/chapter3.htm)
- Peace societies in the Confederacy (http://www.civilwarhome.com/peacesocieties.htm)