Working Paper: NBER ID: w22591
Authors: Shari Eli; Laura Salisbury; Allison Shertzer
Abstract: The American Civil War fractured communities in border states where families who would eventually support the Union or the Confederacy lived together prior to the conflict. We study the subsequent migration choices of these Civil War veterans and their families using a unique longitudinal dataset covering enlistees from the border state of Kentucky. Nearly half of surviving Kentucky veterans moved to a new county between 1860 and 1880. There was no differential propensity to migrate according to side, but former Union soldiers were more likely to leave counties with greater Confederate sympathy for destinations that supported the North. Confederate veterans were more likely to move to counties that supported the Confederacy, or if they left the state, for the South or far West. We find no evidence of a positive economic return to these relocation decisions.
Keywords: migration; civil war; economic consequences; social capital
JEL Codes: J61; N31; R23
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Confederate enlistment share in a county (J45) | Union soldiers' likelihood of migrating (R23) |
| Confederate enlistment share in a county (J45) | Confederate veterans' likelihood of relocating (R23) |
| Social pressures (C92) | Union soldiers' migration decisions (R23) |
| Migration decisions (F22) | Economic returns (I26) |
| Ideological composition of home counties (P16) | Union soldiers' migration propensity (R23) |