Red Strings
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The Red Strings (also Heroes of America) were a group in the Southern United States during the American Civil War. They favored peace, an end to the Confederacy, and a return to the Union. They began early in the war as a group of Unionists and Quakers in the Piedmont regions of North Carolina and Virginia where slavery was largely nonexistent and the causes favoring secession were weakest.

Their name comes from their insignia of red strings worn on their lapels or hung outside of their windows to distinguish themselves from the rebels. The 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.

See also

• Copperheads (politics)

External links and references

• A site on the Red Strings
• Another site on the Red Strings
• Peace societies in the Confederacy