Mississippians in the Northeast

We all know that most Mississippians migrated West when they left the state, but I was a little curious about the number who moved in an unexpected direction--Northeast. I decided to do a little more number crunching with the 1880 census using Ancestry.com.

Maine - 166
New Hampshire - 36
Vermont - 24
Massachusetts - 187
Rhode Island - 21
Connecticut - 45
New York - 498
Delaware - 6
New Jersey - 106
Pennsylvania - 289

These are definitely smaller numbers than we have for those heading West. What made these folks move north? I suspect some of them are descendants of northerners who actually owned many of the plantations in the state of Mississippi. They may have actually been born on a "visit" to the state or while some of their parents wintered in the state. Others may have fled north because of repercussions of their Union sympathies in the Civil War. There are probably a few other reasons for the northern movement as well. I will try to take a closer look at the native Mississippi residents of some of the states with more manageable numbers as I have time to research them.