The US South has long had a proud military tradition that continues today. In 2008, 42 percent of active-duty military enlistees called the South home. (Source)
What led Southerners to rejoin the ranks of the army that smashed the Confederacy and then occupied the South during Reconstruction for more than a decade? What, if anything, did the US government do to ease the return of Southern troops? How long did it take for the South to become overrepresented in the US military after the Civil War?
I am also curious how the the American experience of reconstituting military forces following the Civil War compared to other nations that emerged from Civil War.
A major factor which had an impact was the Spanish American War in 1898.
Immediately after the war there was no real need for troops so most of the units were disbanded, at least the US units, states regiments were always meant simply for the duration of the war. Thus the army returned to policing the frontier and at least for a bit occupying the South so there really wasnt a need to recruit heavily anywhere.
But in 1898 when war breaks out that all changes.It was the first time since the Civil War where large numbers of troops were needed. And since the Regular Army remained small and generally ill equipped for a large scale invasion it was up to the state's to raise troops for the war. So you had an opportunity to fight a foreign foe and earn glory (and it should be said do something many Southerners had wanted to do for generations in invade Cuba). There was little problem then in raising large numbers of regiments to fight.
The senior leadership was also made up of both Union and Confederate vets. Generals Sumner and Shafter had been Union officers, while Wheeler and Fitzhugh Lee (Robert E. Lee's nephew) were decorated Confederate cavalry officers. The story even goes that in Cuba the aging Wheeler shouted to his men "Let's go, boys! We've got the damn Yankees on the run again!"
There really arent enough good books on the War with Spain for how important it was, but two I enjoy:
The Spanish War: An American Epic, 1898 by G.J.A. O'Toole
The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898 (Hardcover) by Evan Thomas