No Civil War battles were fought in New Jersey, but between 65,000 and 80,000 soldiers from the state fought for the Union and were "highly commended," said Joseph G. Bilby, editor and author of 19 history books, including "New Jersey's Civil War Odyssey."
"They stayed to the end," said Bilby, who serves on the New Jersey Civil War Sesquicentennial Committee and is assistant curator at the National Guard Museum in Sea Girt.
Bilby talked with NJ Advance Media about the state's role in the war following historic re-enactors' camp-out recreating life in the Civil War era over the weekend at Historic Speedwell in Morristown.
Discussion about the war and its rebel banner, the Confederate flag, has also been renewed after officials said a 21-year-old white man shot to death nine people following a prayer meeting at a historic church in Charleston, S.C. last week. The shooter was seen brandishing that flag in widely circulated pictures, and there have been calls for South Carolina to stop flying the flag at its statehouse. Gov. Chris Christie, unlike several other declared and potential GOP presidential candidates, has yet to make a public statement on the flag.
Although New Jersey was in the Union, it was not a hotbed of abolitionist sentiment, according to Bilby.
Some facts about the state's role in the war, as related by Bilby:
1. Big business: Although New Jerseyans opposed the South's secession, "New Jersey did a lot of business in the South," and did not want to be at war with that region, Bilby noted. Factories in the industrial cities of Newark and Paterson manufactured cheap clothing for use by slaves, so the abolitionist movement was not strong in northern New Jersey, Bilby said.
2. Union support: However, pro-Union sentiment grew as the war continued because those factories provided clothing and materials for the Union soldiers, Bilby said.
3. Quakers' influence: The abolitionist movement was stronger in South Jersey, mainly because of the large Quaker population near Philadelphia which condemned the "peculiar institution" of slavery, Bilby said.
4. No love for Lincoln: New Jersey did not vote for the Republican Abraham Lincoln either time he ran. It split its electoral votes with the Democrat Stephen Douglas in 1860 and the Democrat George McClellan in 1864, who was a general in the Union Army.
5. Underground Railroad: Nonetheless, in the years leading up to the Civil War, New Jersey boasted a significant number of Underground Railroad stations. Stretching from Cape May to Jersey City, these havens harbored slaves escaping to freedom. Important "conductors" included Harriet Tubman, then a Cape May hotel cook, and William Still, New Jersey-born administrator and chronicler of the "railroad."
6. Volunteer soldiers: Of the tens of thousands of New Jerseyans who served in the Union Army, only 900 were draftees, Bilby said. New Jersey was able to fill its required ranks through volunteer regiments before national conscription began in 1863.
7. Bounties helped: Many of the volunteer soldiers were paid bounties of $200 to $600 by townships and counties, Bilby said. Bounties of $6 were also paid to wives of men enlisting in the service, he added.
8. A diverse lineup: New Jersey's soldiers were a diverse lot, "representing the ethnic and religious mosaic that became the state's 20th-century trademark," Bilby said. Among them were native-born Protestant descendants of the original Dutch and English settlers, along with Jews and Catholic Irishmen, Italians and Poles. Beginning in 1863, African-Americans flocked to the Union ranks as well, Bilby said.
9. Women's role: New Jersey's women made their presence known on and off the battlefields, and included nurses like Cornelia Hancock, who was known as "America's Florence Nightingale," and Somerville native Arabella Wharton Griffith Barlow, who nursed her husband, a general, back to health and later died of typhus while tending to sick soldiers.
10. No fighting on Jersey soil: The bloody 1863 Battle of Gettysburg, where an estimated 51,000 soldiers died, was the closest the war ever got to New Jersey.
Ben Horowitz may be reached at bhorowitz@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @HorowitzBen. Find NJ.com on Facebook.