West Virginia in the American Civil War

This essentially freed Unionists in the northwestern counties of Virginia to form a functioning government of their own as a result of the Wheeling Convention.

Nevertheless, due to its increasingly precarious military position and desperate shortage of resources, Confederate military actions in what it continued to regard as "western Virginia" focused less on reconquest as opposed to both on supplying the Confederate Army with provisions as well as attacking the vital Baltimore and Ohio Railroad that linked the northeast with the Midwest, as exemplified in the Jones-Imboden Raid.

Dennison of Ohio requested that John Carlile and other Unionists meet with his Attorney General Christopher Wolcott in Bridgeport, OH.

The members of this government and the Wheeling convention that organized it had not been elected by the people of West Virginia for this purpose, however, and faced much opposition in the region.

[8] Many of West Virginia's delegates and senators refused to join the Wheeling government and assumed their elected offices in Richmond.

[10][11] Historian Charles H. Ambler has said "There was no denying the fact that West Virginia was largely the creation of the Northern Panhandle and the counties along the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, which supplied her officers and funds for her public institutions.

In Wheeling by 1860 two of three heads-of-households were not native Virginians, and in the town of Grafton, an important hub for the railroad, about half the adult males were Irish or other immigrants.

Others, such as Daniel Lamb, questioned the propriety of creating a new state and writing a constitution which included counties that could not or would not freely vote.

As historian Otis K. Rice noted-"Although the Wheeling Intelligencer professed to see an "astonishing unanimity" of sentiment in the vote, in reality the returns reflected the deep division of feeling in western Virginia and intimidation on the part of supporters of the new state.

"Thus, by the spring of 1862, Unionists of western Virginia had divided into four distinct factions: (1) opponents of statehood under any circumstances; (2) a militant free state group; (3) a moderate wing that feared the complications of the slavery question and attempted to avoid it; (4) a conservative faction that would oppose dismemberment rather than submit to Congressional interference.

Wheeling's other senator, Waitman T. Willey, was able to restore the bill and attach an amendment to it authorizing gradual emancipation of slaves in the new state.

Pierpont on Feb. 27, 1863, stating "After you get a short distance below the Panhandle, it is not safe for a loyal man to go into the interior out of sight of the Ohio River.

"[28] Nevertheless, with West Virginian statehood Lincoln and his administration was willing to treat the whole of the new state as if it had never rebelled, and any localities under Richmond's control as if they had been invaded and occupied by hostile Confederate forces regardless of the local population's views (i.e. a similar position to how the Union government regarded Maryland territory invaded by Lee a few months earlier, and Pennsylvanian territory occupied by the Confederate army later in 1863).

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.

"Stonewall" Jackson occupied Harpers Ferry and part of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad leading into western Virginia.

Union strategy for the region was to protect the vital B&O Railroad and also attack eastward into the Shenandoah Valley and southwestern Virginia.

Harpers Ferry was the site of a major U.S. Army arsenal, and was taken by Confederates in the opening days of the war, and again during the Maryland Campaign of 1862.

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.

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.

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.

[43] 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.

The fight against the rebel guerrillas took a new turn under Gen. John C. Fremont and Col. George Crook, who had spent his pre-war career as an "Indian fighter" in the Pacific Northwest.

[44] On January 1, 1862, Crook led his men on an expedition north to Sutton, Braxton County, where he believed Confederate forces were located.

None were found, but his troops encountered heavy guerrilla resistance and responded by burning houses and towns along the line of march.

In this vacuum Gen. William W. Loring, C.S.A, recaptured the Kanawha valley, Gen. Albert Gallatin Jenkins, C.S.A., moved his forces through central West Virginia, capturing many supplies and prisoners.

In response to rebel raids, Gen. Robert H. Milroy issued a command demanding reparations to be paid in cash and proceeded to assess fines against Tucker county citizens, guilty or not, and threatened them with the gallows or house-burning.

Jefferson Davis and Confederate authorities lodged formal complaints with Gen. Henry Wager Halleck in Washington, who censured Gen. Milroy.

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...".

In 1995 the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War began a soldier-by-soldier count of all regiments that would include West Virginians, both Union and Confederate.

[75]A total of 14 medals were awarded to soldiers of the 1st West Virginia Cavalry; making it one of the highest decorated regiments of the Union Army.