Introduction

The matter of states' rights, particularly as it applied to the question of slavery, was the primary issue that launched the United States into civil war from 1861 to 1865. Residents of many areas of the country were divided on the political questions of the time, and western Virginians were no exception. However, during the same period they were also divided on the question of their prospective statehood.

Many of the Virginia counties west of the Applachian Mountains had long felt financially neglected, politically ignored, and physically isolated from the rest of the state. When Abraham Lincoln was elected to the U.S. Presidency in 1860, a number of southern states seceded from the Union, and Virginia was among them. However, delegates to the secession convention from the western counties of the state had, for the most part, voted against the ordinance for secession.

They returned home, and in June 1861, held their own convention to discuss the formation of a new state. A constitution was approved in February 1862, and in December, President Lincoln signed a bill making West Virginia a separate state, effective June 1863.¹

The territory that made up the new state was strategically important to both the Union and Confederacy during the war. It controlled the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and a portion of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad—transportation links important to both the North and South. Its very mountainous terrain also represented an effective physical buffer between the North and South. The Kanawha Valley was particularly important for its salt works and waterways. It was the Confederacy's natural route to the Ohio River, and the Union's natural route to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Thus, from the beginning of the war, control of this valley was vigorously sought by both sides.

Next: Action in the Kanawha Valley, August 1862-July 1863
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Copyright © Kimberly Ball Hieronimus Brownlee, 1998-2003. All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in any manner for any media without the express written agreement of the author.