New Jersey in the American Civil War New Jersey in the American Civil War The state of New Jersey in the United States provided a source of troops, equipment and leaders for the Union during the American Civil War. Though no major battles were fought in New Jersey, soldiers and volunteers from New Jersey played an important part in the war, including Philip Kearny and George B. McClellan, who led the Army of the Potomac early in the Civil War and unsuccessfully ran for President of the United States in 1864 against his former commander-in-chief, Abraham Lincoln. The Quaker population of New Jersey was especially intolerant of
Names of the American Civil War American flag". Given that in the free states non-Yankee groups – Germans, Dutch-Americans, New York Irish and southern-leaning settlers in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois – showed majority opposition to waging the Civil War, other Confederate sympathizers have used the name "War of Yankee Aggression" or "Great War of Yankee Aggression" to indicate the Civil War as a Yankee war, not a Northern war "per se". Conversely, the "War of Southern Aggression" has been used by those who maintain that the Confederacy was the belligerent party. They maintain the thought that the Confederacy started the war when they initiated combat at