Virginia in The American Civil War - West Virginia Splits

West Virginia Splits

See also: Restored government of Virginia and West Virginia in the American Civil War

The western counties could not tolerate the Confederacy; acting without any permission from Richmond they broke away and formed first the Union state of Virginia (recognized by Washington), then with its permission formed the new state of West Virginia in 1862.

At the Richmond secession convention on April 17, 1861, the delegates from western counties were 17 in favor and 30 against secession.

From May to August 1861, a series of Unionist conventions met in Wheeling; the Second Wheeling Convention constituted itself as a legislative body called the Restored Government of Virginia. It declared Virginia was still in the Union but that the state offices were vacant and elected a new governor, Francis H. Pierpont, this body gained formal recognition by the Lincoln administration on July 4, but Congress did not seat its elected representatives. On August 20 the Wheeling body passed an ordinance for the creation; it was put to public vote on Oct. 24. The vote was in favor of a new state—West Virginia—which was distinct from the Pierpont government, which persisted until the end of the war.

Congress and Lincoln approved, and, after providing for gradual emancipation of slaves in the new state constitution, West Virginia became the 35th state on June 20, 1863.

During the War, West Virginia contributed about 32,000 soldiers to the Union Army and about 10,000 to the Confederate cause. Richmond of course did not recognize the new state, and Confederates did not vote there. Everyone realized the decision would be made on the battlefield, and Richmond sent in Robert E. Lee. But Lee found little local support and was defeated by Union forces from Ohio. Union victories in 1861 drove the Confederate forces out of the Monongahela and Kanawha valleys, and throughout the remainder of the war the Union held the region west of the Alleghenies and controlled the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the north.