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Virginia in the American Civil War

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Seal of the Confederate States of America
Confederate States
in the
American Civil War
Dual governments
Territory
Allied tribes in
Indian Territory

Prewar tensions

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. Federal troops responded and quelled the raid, led by Robert E. Lee. Subsequently John Brown was tried and executed by hanging in Charles Town on December 2, 1859. On June 26, Southern Democrats held their convention in Richmond, Virginia and nominated John C. Breckinridge as their party candidate for President.

Secession Deliberations

On January 7, 1861 the Virginia General Assembly called a special session to consider the creation and of a secession convention. This convention was approved on January 14, and almost immediately followed by a movement called the Peace Conference of 1861 on January 19, also led by Virginia's former President of the United States, John Tyler. Elections were then held on February 4, effectively creating a pro-Union convention body. Simultaneous to this election, six Southern states seceded to form the Confederate States of America on February 4.

Virginia began the Virginia Secession Convention on February 13, 1861, led by former President John Tyler and former Virginia governor Henry Wise. On April 4, the convention met and voted against secession. The convention deliberated for several months, but events took a sudden turn when on 15 April, the President Abraham Lincoln called for a 75,000-man army to invade the "rebelling" states. Sentiment in Virginia immediatley shifted and the Virginia Secession Convention reconvened and voted on 17 April, provisionally, to secede, on the condition of ratification by a statewide referendum. The vote was 88 to 55 in favor of secession.

Among those in favor of secession was former U.S. President John Tyler, and among those against secession was Jubal Early. However, after the formal vote delegates were allowed to change their votes. The final tally was 103 to 46 in favor of secession.With the entry of Virginia into the Confederacy, the decision to move the Confederate capital from Montgomery, Alabama to Richmond was made on May 6 and enacted on May 29. Virginians ratified the articles of secession on May 23. The following day, the Union army moved into northern Virginia and captured Alexandria without a fight, while Colonel Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson shut down the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the Great Train Raid of 1861.

The War Between the States

The conflict that ensued was generally referred to by notable Virginias as "The War Between the States", as in the title of the 1904 book The Confederate Cause and Conduct in the War Between the States, published by Dr. Hunter McGuire and George L. Christian. The first major battle of the Civil War occurred on July 21, 1861. Union forces attempted to take control of the railroad junction at Manassas for use as a supply line, but the Confederate Army had moved its forces by train to meet the Union. The Confederates won the First Battle of Manassas (known as "Bull Run"in Northern naming convention) and the year went on without a major fight.

The first and last significant battles were held in Virginia. The first being the Battle of Manassas and the last being Battle of Appomattox Courthouse. During the American Civil War, Richmond was the capital of the Confederate States of America. 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.

In April 1865, Richmond was burned by a retreating Confederate Army and was returned to Northern control. Virginia was administered as the "First Military District" during the Reconstruction period (1865-1870) under General John Schofield. The state formally rejoined the Union on January 26, 1870.

Industrialization

File:VrgaGvrnMnsn.jpg
The Virginia Governor's mansion in 1865.

Various textile production was present prior to 1861 but nothing of great significance. A center of iron production during the civil war was located in Richmond at Tredegar Iron Works. Tredegar was run partially by slave labor, and it produced most of the artillery for the war, making Richmond an important point to defend.

West Virginia split

See also: West Virginia in the Civil War

The 47 delegates from what eventually became West Virginia voted 32 to 15 against secession. Some of those delegates and other Unionists in western Virginia formed an alternative government, the Restored Government of Virginia, in the city of Wheeling. On August 20 1861 this government granted itself permission to form a new state, eventually named West Virginia, and presented an application for statehood to the U.S. Congress which consisted of 48 counties of Virginia, nearly half of which had voted for secession. On June 20, 1863, West Virginia was formally admitted to the Union. Two more counties were added in 1863, Jefferson and Berkeley. These had not been part of the original Statehood bill, and Virginia attempted reclamation in a suit before the United States Supreme Court. In December, 1870, the court ruled in favor of West Virginia.

With the formation of West Virginia, Virginia no longer shared a border with Pennsylvania. Even in the 20th century, there were still some disputes about the precise location of the border in some of the northern mountain reaches of Virginia between Loudoun County and Jefferson County, West Virginia. In 1991, both state legislatures appropriated money for a boundary commission to look into 15 miles of the border area .

Notable Civil War leaders (Confederate) from Virginia

Notes

  1. "Virginia's Decision", Virginia Civil War Commission, Richmond, 1964, pg. 11
  2. ibid., pgs. 14-15
  3. "Civil War and Reconstruction", by J.G. Randall, D. C. Heath and Company, 1966
  4. "A History of West Virginia", Charles Ambler, Prentice-Hall, 1933, pg. 309
  5. "A House Divided", Richard Orr Curry, Univ. of Pittsburgh, 1964, pgs. 141-149
  6. "History and Government of West Virginia", Virgil A. Lewis, Jim Comstock, 1973, pgs. 190-192

See also

External links


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