The White House of the Confederacy, located a few blocks north of the State Capitol, became home to the family of Confederate leader, former Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis.

On October 16, 1859, the radical abolitionist John Brown led a group of 22 men in a raid on the Federal Arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

In 1860, the Democratic Party split into northern and southern factions over the issue of slavery in the territories and Stephen Douglas' support for popular sovereignty: after failing in both Charleston and Baltimore to nominate a single candidate acceptable to the South, Southern Democrats held their convention in Richmond, Virginia, on June 26, 1860, and nominated John C. Breckinridge as their party candidate for U.S.

[5] On November 15, 1860, Virginia Governor John Letcher called for a special session of the General Assembly to consider, among other issues, the creation of a secession convention.

On January 19 the General Assembly called for a national Peace Conference, led by Virginia native and former U.S. President John Tyler, to be held in Washington, D.C., on February 4, the same date that elections were scheduled for delegates to the secession convention.

In addition, there were hopes that the Peace Conference on January 19, led by former President John Tyler, might resolve the crisis by guaranteeing the permanence of slavery and the right to expand it into the new southwest territories.

[12] At the Richmond Convention in February 1861, Georgian Henry Lewis Benning, who would later be a Confederate army officer, delivered a speech in which he gave his reasoning for the urging of secession from the Union, appealing to ethnic prejudices and pro-slavery sentiments to present his case, saying that were the slave states to remain in the Union, their slaves would ultimately end up being freed by the anti-slavery Republican Party.

He stated that he would rather be stricken with illness and starvation than to see black slaves liberated and given equality as citizens: What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession?

It is not a supposable case [...] war will break out everywhere like hidden fire from the earth, and it is probable that the white race, being superior in every respect, may push the other back.

[...] We will be completely exterminated, and the land will be left in the possession of the blacks, and then it will go back to a wilderness and become another Africa [...] Suppose they elevated Charles Sumner to the presidency?

I say give me pestilence and famine sooner than that.Unionist support was further eroded for many Virginians by Lincoln's first inaugural address, which they felt was "argumentative, if not defiant.

[24] Unionists were concerned about the continued presence of U.S. forces at Fort Sumter, despite assurances communicated informally to them by U.S. Secretary of State William Seward that it would be abandoned.

Baldwin explained that the unionists needed the evacuation of Fort Sumter, a national convention to debate the sectional differences, and a commitment by Lincoln to support constitutional protections for southern rights.

[27] Over Lincoln's skepticism, Baldwin argued that Virginia would be out of the Union within forty-eight hours if either side fired a shot in the vicinity of the fort.

On April 6, amid rumors that the North was preparing for war, the convention voted by a narrow 63–57 to send a three-man delegation to Washington to determine from Lincoln what his intentions were.

[30] An April 9 Confederate cabinet meeting resulted in President Davis ordering General P. G. T. Beauregard to take the Fort before supplies could reach it.

[34] With Virginia still in a delicate balance, with no firm determination yet to secede,[citation needed] sentiment turned more strongly toward secession on April 15, following President Lincoln's call to all states that had not declared a secession, including Virginia, for sending troops to assist in halting the insurrection and recovering the captured forts:[35] War Department, Washington, April 15, 1861.

To His Excellency the Governor of Virginia: Sir: Under the act of Congress for calling forth "militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, repel invasions, etc.," approved February 28, 1795, I have the honor to request your Excellency to cause to be immediately detached from the militia of your State the quota designated in the table below, to serve as infantry or rifleman for the period of three months, unless sooner discharged.

Governor Letcher and the recently reconvened Virginia Secession Convention considered this request from Lincoln "for troops to invade and coerce"[36] lacking in constitutional authority, and out of scope of the Act of 1795.

Since that time I have received your communications mailed the same day, in which I am requested to detach from the militia of the State of Virginia "the quota assigned in a table," which you append, "to serve as infantry or rifleman for the period of three months, unless sooner discharged."

You have chosen to inaugurate civil war, and, having done so, we will meet it in a spirit as determined as the administration has exhibited toward the South.April 17 marked the effective secession of Virginia.

Wise gave a fiery speech in which he announced that as he spoke the Virginia militia was seizing the Federal armory at Harper's Ferry, which had only a few years prior been the subject of John Brown's raid.

During the summer of 1861, parts of the northern, western and eastern Virginia, including the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, were returned to Union control.

The city's Tredegar Iron Works, the 3rd largest foundry in the United States at the start of the war, produced most of the Confederate artillery, including a number of giant rail-mounted siege cannons.

Richmond's factories also produced guns, bullets, tents, uniforms, harnesses, leather goods, swords, bayonets, and other war materiel.

The Blue Ridge mountains and similar sites had long been mined for iron (though as the war progressed, shortages in manpower limited their production).

The White House of the Confederacy, located a few blocks north of the State Capital, was home to the family of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

The campaign included battles of attrition at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor and ended with the Siege of Petersburg and Confederate defeat.

[53] Due to the restricted enlistment for soldiers in Pennsylvania and Ohio many men not accepted in those states chose to join Pierpont's military organizations.

Areas of Virginia that supplied Union soldiers and sent few men to fight for the Confederacy, were those that had few or no slaves, a high percentage of poor families, and a history of opposition to secession.