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@ashira Well, like I said, I don’t know a while lot about California’s particular participation in the Civil War, but I know that Wikipedia article covers it pretty thoroughly.  However, to get a good idea of Western Civil War era relations I’d definitely recommend you watch Two Flags West (1950)!  It is a very interesting and unusual Civil War movie in the fact that it doesn’t show any bias to one side or the other, but simply shows both sides as they were.  Politics aren’t gone into, but just relations.  I would definitely not recommend watching it with younger kids, though, as it deals with some tough subjects, and the end is pretty sad.

@eden-anderson Hm, the first thing I thought of was a way to fix up the cliche of “guy gets kicked out of his family for the girl” would be to have him not marry her. 😛  Maybe he just becomes really good friends with her, and then marries a Southern girl who also believes slavery is wrong?  If the Northern girl was just a friend who helped him understand the problems with slavery, and he went back home and married a Southern girl, he wouldn’t necessarily have the problem with his parents.  Or, he could still consider marrying her, and then ultimately decide it would be selfish of him to take her away from family she loves, down South to a place where she’ll be hated.  That’s a romantic and idealistic thing to do, (“if you were the only girl in the world,” etc.) but it wouldn’t be all that romantic in real life, once the “honeymoon stage” wore off.  He could even have a whole struggle with himself over how to balance “a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife” with “honor thy father and mother.”

What are your thoughts on that suggestion?