Copperhead (politics)

In the 1860s, the Copperheads comprised a vocal faction of Democrats in the Northern United States of the Union who opposed the American Civil War, wanting an immediate peace settlement with the Confederates. Republicans started calling anti-war Democrats "Copperheads", likening them to the venomous snake. Those Democrats accepted the label, reinterpreting the copper "head" as the likeness of Liberty, which they cut from Liberty Head large cents and proudly wore as badges. Democratic supporters of the war, by contrast, were called War Democrats.