It has been estimated that thirty percent of the white men of the hill and mountain counties of the South joined the Union League in 1865-66.

They cared little about the original objects of the order but hoped to make it the nucleus of an anti-Democratic political organization.
But on the admission of Negroes into the lodges or councils controlled by Northern men the native white members began to withdraw.

From the beginning the Bureau agents, the teachers, and the preachers had been holding meetings of Negroes, to whom they gave advice about the problems of freedom.

Very early these advisers of the blacks grasped the possibilities inherent in their control of the schools, the rationing system, and the churches.

By the spring of 1866, the Negroes were widely organized under this leadership, and it needed but slight change to convert the Negro meetings into local councils of the Union League.* As soon as it seemed likely that Congress would win in its struggle with the President the guardians of the Negro planned their campaign for the control of the race.