CLARKSBURG, W.Va. – On April 17, 1861, the Virginia Convention voted to secede from the Union. It was that day that West Virginia’s statehood was assured. All that remained was parceling out rebellious counties along the borders of the Old Dominion and the new Mountain State following the South’s defeat in the Civil War.

While counties in the what is now the southeastern portion of West Virginia had a larger number of Confederate sympathizers in 1861, it was in the far reaches of northwest Virginia that supporters of the Union were starting newspapers and planning the region’s secession from Virginia. Leaders such as Francis Harrison Pierpont and others in northern Virginia immediately took the initiative and established the “Reorganized State of Virginia.”

The map of the slave population in Virginia in 1860 reveals the primary reason for the divorce. Counties in what is now Virginia were far more dependent upon slavery. Counties in what is now West Virginia were far less so.

For many reasons, numerous Confederates, such as General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson of Clarksburg and Allen Taylor Caperton of Monroe County, who was a member of the Confederate Senate, were on the side of the Lost Cause. It was leaders like Pierpont that chose the right side of history.

© Michael M. Barrick, 2023. Note: all links and photos (except the map) are from e-WV, The online West Virginia Encyclopedia. State seal from Wikipedia.