"How hard was it to move from North to South?" Topic

Not so much military stuff as general history, but I am curious:

How hard was it for a person during the war to get from the Union states to the Confederacy or vice versa?

Since cavalry raids took place, were there border patrols?
How intensive were they?
ID cards?

How hard a time would someone get if they had an accent that made it clear they were from the wrong side of the country?

Cheers

Voluptuous Confederate lady spies did it all the time.

I have been researching raids in Alabama. In 1862, there were numerous raids along the tenn River. It was easy for the Union to operate down river. As for a general history. The main transportation routes were along rivers until the wide spread use of the train.

It was possible to move from one ide to the other throughout the war. The degree of difficulty had more to do with who & why you were headed there, whether you could get a pass permitting you to cross the lines along the major road/rail/waterways, and then procuring transportation.

In all things, it was a true then as it is today: Money Talks. Not saying that bribes were issued, per se, but getting aboard a boat or train, buying a horse, etc, could be problematic depending upon where you were leaving from, where you were headed, when this was occurring, and how quickly you needed to get there.

Short answer, "officially" you need a pass to travel beyond the behined the other side's lines. However, due to the long borders between the North and South, this was hard to enforce. Attached is a link to an article, that I think you'll find it very interesting, regarding travel documentation during the Civil War.

link

One other note, I suspect, depending on location, a traveler would be more likely to encounter a Confederate patrol guarding their side of the border, then a Union patrol, since they were very concerned about valuable slave "property" sneaking across the border to freedom, they put more effort into patrolling and watching obvious border crossings.

I hope this information helps

Rick.

Confederate and Union soldiers actually talked and traded across some of the rivers that served as borders between the two sides. There were Northerners in the South and Southerners in the North throughout the war. As noted above, however, travel could be difficult depending.

My understanding is that any soldier, captured or surrendered, found the movement to the opposite end of the country quite automatic.

Do you mean then or now?

jdpintex…it's pretty hard now if you want to use public transport between locations with no airports.

Hundred of thousands of Union soldiers moved south with varying degrees of difficulty. They were called the Army of the Potomac, the Army of the Tennessee, the Army of the Shenandoah, etc….

As for individuals, it was surprisingly easy if you traveled light. Passes were checked by sentinels where the armies were present, but they couldn't cover the whole front.

The difficulty crossing the lines probably wouldn't be as great as simply getting to the lines. In the areas of U.S. occupation, the military controlled the railroads and much of the shipping. In the Confederacy shipping had largely disappeared and rail service generally got poorer as you approached the front. There were plenty of roads, but many support facilities such as inns and livery stables would not have been functioning.