During the Civil War, some Delaware citizens felt strongly enough to leave their state, farms, businesses, and families to go south and enlist, serving in units from Virginia to Texas despite the perilous journey required to evade Southern blockades. Many used routes that led to Seaford, then down the Nanticoke River and across the Chesapeake Bay to Virginia. Delaware was deeply divided over secession, with volunteers for the South coming from all three counties, most from Kent and Sussex, and from many walks of life, from doctors and engineers to farmers and sharecroppers. The state's border position and split between industrial and agricultural economies reflected national tensions: northern New Castle County tended to be heavily pro-Union, while many in southern Delaware sympathized with the Southern states. Before the war, even many who were uncertain between Union and Confederacy wanted a peaceful solution, including allowing Southern states to break away. Among those sympathetic to Southern concerns were Governor William Burton, a Sussex County Democrat, and Delaware's two U.S. senators, Willard Saulsbury Sr. and James Bayard Jr., who were called peace democrats because they opposed President Lincoln's policy of coercing the Southern states. Delaware's wartime commitment was large on both sides: more than 13,000 Delawareans fought for the Union, including 954 African American troops, while estimates of Delawareans who enlisted in Confederate units ranged from 300 to 3,000. One estimate held that 78% of Delaware men between ages 15 and 45 served on the Union side, and if 3,000 who served with Southern units were included, well over 80% of Delaware men in that age range had been away at war, leaving wives and families to run farms and businesses.