Occupied mainly by Cherokees until gold was discovered in the mountains in 1828, Union County was created in 1832 and divided up in the final Georgia Land Lottery. Rugged and inaccessible even by the standards of the day, the area was settled primarily by the Scots-Irish mountain people of the Appalachians, many of whom were poor.
Pioneer life was difficult and early settlers had to be hardy and self-sufficient. Most were farmers or the tradesmen necessary to support agriculture; some were millers, gold miners, and moonshiners. Indian conflicts and personal hardships weren uncommon.
Few mountain people held slaves and most were opposed to slavery. At the state legislative convention in 1861, both Union County delegates voted against secession. The county eventually followed the state in supporting the Confederacy, though residents of the county fought and died on both sides of the war. The impressive Veterans War Memorial in Union County honors both the Union and Confederate soldiers who died in the conflict.
Union County was not named in sympathy for the North, as the county was named nearly 30 years prior to the Civil War. One explanation is that nion came from the Union Party, a political group that had urged opening Indian land to white settlement after the discovery of gold
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