West Virginia in the American Civil War

• 1. Secession And Statehood Politics

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  On the 17th of April 1861, the Virginia state convention in Richmond declared secession. There were 49 delegates representing the 50 counties that became West Virginia. On that day they voted 32 against the ordinance, 13 in favor, and 4 absent or abstained. The convention adjourned on May 1 to be reconvened in June. Most of the 49 delegates returned to Richmond in June and a majority signed the ordinance of secession. Of the 49 delegates 29 signed the ordinance.

  On May 15, western Virginia Unionists convened the first session of the Wheeling Convention. Most of the 436 delegates were informally selected or self-appointed, over one-third were from the four counties of the northern panhandle. During the convention Gov. Dennison of Ohio requested that John Carlile and other Unionists meet with his Attorney General Christopher Wolcott in Bridgeport, OH. They were told if they would break off from Virginia that Ohio would send military force to protect them. The convention denounced secession and called for a more formal selection of delegates. No official county elections for delegates were held though as most county officials were still supportive of the Richmond government.

  Returns from the western counties were slow in arriving when Gov. Letcher announced Virginia's passage of the secession ordinance. Some published returns were conflicting and some were missing. Historian Richard O. Curry estimated an approximate vote on the secession ordinance from West Virginia's counties as 34,677 against and 19,121 in favor of secession, with 24 counties supporting the ordinance and 26 rejecting it. With Virginia now part of the Confederacy a convention of Unionists in Wheeling organized a rump government on June 11, with Francis H. Pierpont as governor and a legislature composed of elected state delegates and senators who had refused to serve in the Richmond government. This Restored Government of Virginia was officially recognized by the Lincoln administration.

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• 2. Military Campaigns And Battles

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  In April 1861, Virginia troops under Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson occupied Harpers Ferry and part of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad leading into western Virginia. They seized many B&O locomotives and railcars on May 23. In May and June 1861, Confederate forces advanced into western Virginia to impose control by the Richmond government and the Confederacy. They got no further than Philippi due to bad roads. Then Union troops under McClellan drove them back in July.

  There was additional campaigning further south where Greenbrier County was pro-Confederate enabling Confederate troops to enter Nicholas County to the west. In September 1861 Union troops drove the Confederates out of Nicholas County and defeated their counterattack at Cheat Mountain. Thereafter all of the trans-Allegheny region was under firm Union control except for the southern and eastern counties. Greenbrier County was occupied in May 1862. Pro-Confederate guerrillas burned and plundered in some sections and were not entirely suppressed until after the war was ended.

  There were two minor Confederate expeditions against the northeastern corner of the west later on: Jackson's Romney Expedition in January 1862; and the Jones-Imboden Raid in May, June 1863. The B&O passed across the lower end of the Shenandoah east of the Alleghenies. This area was therefore occupied by Union troops for nearly all of the war and was a scene of frequent combat. Harpers Ferry was the site of a major U.S. Army arsenal and was taken by Confederates in the opening days of the war again during the Maryland Campaign of 1862.

• 3. Guerrilla Warfare And Civilian Suffering

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  On the 28th of May 1861 one of the first trials of the Civil War for sabotage took place in Parkersburg Virginia. A group of men were found playing cards under a B&O railroad bridge and arrested by Federal authorities. The trial was conducted by Judge William Lowther Jackson who later became Gen. W.L. Jackson C.S.A. The men were acquitted since no actual crime had taken place but Parkersburg was split over the verdict and Judge Jackson left to join Col. Porterfield at Philippi.

  Local supporters of Richmond were left to their own devices after the defeat of Confederate forces at the Battle of Philippi and the Battle of Cheat Mountain. Many guerrilla units originated in the pre-war militia and these were designated Virginia State Rangers starting in June 1862. By March 1863 many were enlisted in the regular Confederate army. There were others though who operated without sanction of the Richmond government some fighting on behalf of the Confederacy while others were nothing more than bandits who preyed on Union and Confederate alike.

  Early in the war captured guerrillas were sent to Camp Chase or Johnson Island in Ohio Fort Delaware in Delaware and also the Athenaeum in Wheeling. Some were paroled after taking an oath but many returned to their guerrilla activities. The Union authorities began to organize their own guerrilla bands the most famous of which was the Snake Hunters headed by Capt. Baggs. They patrolled Wirt and Calhoun counties through the winter of 1861, 62 and captured scores of Moccasin Rangers which they sent as prisoners to Wheeling.

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• 4. Slavery And Emancipation Debates

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  During the Civil War a Unionist government in Wheeling Virginia presented a statehood bill to Congress in order to create a new state from 48 counties in western Virginia. The new state would eventually incorporate 50 counties. The issue of slavery in the new state delayed approval of the bill. In the Senate Charles Sumner objected to the admission of a new slave state while Benjamin Wade defended statehood as long as a gradual emancipation clause would be included in the new state constitution.

  Two senators represented the Unionist Virginia government John S. Carlile and Waitman T. Willey. Senator Carlile objected that Congress had no right to impose emancipation on West Virginia while Willey proposed a compromise amendment to the state constitution for gradual abolition. Sumner attempted to add his own amendment to the bill which was defeated and the statehood bill passed both houses of Congress with the addition of what became known as the Willey Amendment. President Lincoln signed the bill on the 31st of December 1862.

  Voters in western Virginia approved the Willey Amendment on the 26th of March 1863. As of the census of 1860 the 49 exempted counties held some 6000 slaves over 21 years of age who would not have been emancipated about 40 percent of the total slave population. The terms of the Willey Amendment only freed children at birth or as they came of age and prohibited the importation of slaves. Slavery was ended in West Virginia by the legislature on Feb. 3, 1865.

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• 5. Recruitment And Soldier Demographics

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  On the 30th of May 1861 Brig. Gen. George B. McClellan in Cincinnati wrote to President Lincoln: I am confidently assured that very considerable numbers of volunteers can be raised in Western Virginia. After nearly two months in the field in West Virginia he was less optimistic. He wrote to Gov. Francis Harrison Pierpont of the Restored Government of Virginia in Wheeling that he and his army were anxious to assist the new government but that eventually they would be needed elsewhere and that he urged that troops be raised among the population. Before I left Grafton I made requisitions for arms clothing etc for 10,000 Virginia troops , I fear that my estimate was much too large.

  Similar difficulties were experienced by Confederate authorities at the beginning of the war. On the 14th of May 1861 Col. George A. Porterfield arrived in Grafton to secure volunteers and reported slow enlistment. Col. Porterfield's difficulty ultimately however was lack of support by the Richmond government which did not send enough guns tents and other supplies. He eventually turned away hundreds of volunteers due to lack of equipment. In April 1862 the Confederate government instituted a military draft and nearly a year later the U.S. government did the same.

  The official number of Union soldiers from West Virginia is 31,884 as stated by the Provost Marshal General of the United States. These numbers include however re-enlistment figures. In 1905 Charles H. Ambler estimated the number of native Union soldiers to be about 20,000. Richard Current estimated native Union numbers at 29,000. In his calculations however he only allowed for a deduction of 2,000 out-of-state soldiers in West Virginia regiments. Ohio contributed nearly 5,000 with about 2,000 from Pennsylvania and other states.

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• 6. Nursing And Medical Care Efforts

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  The Sisters of St. Joseph who operated Wheeling Hospital in that city were nurses during the war. They treated soldiers brought to the hospital and prisoners at the Athenaeum in downtown Wheeling. In 1864 the Union army took control of the hospital and the sisters went on the federal payroll as matrons and nurses beginning that summer. Several of them later received pensions in recognition of their service.

  West Virginians served on both sides in the war. Because those in Confederate service were in Virginia regiments the number of West Virginians who joined the Confederate States Army can only be roughly estimated. However it is generally accepted that a clear majority of men under arms from the West Virginian counties on the new 1863 state border enlisted and fought with the Confederate forces. Conversely most soldiers from the state's more northerly counties enlisted in the Union Army.

  Among these were the 7th West Virginia Infantry famed for actions at Antietam and Gettysburg and the 3rd West Virginia Cavalry which also fought at Gettysburg. On the Confederate side Albert G. Jenkins a former U.S. Representative recruited a brigade of cavalry in western Virginia which he led until his death in May 1864. Other western Virginians served under Brig. Gen. John Imboden and in the Stonewall Brigade under Brig. Gen. James A. Walker.