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== Virginia during the war==
== Virginia during the war==
The ensuing conflict 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, Virginia|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 ensuing conflict was generally referred to by notable Virginias as "The War Between the States", as in the title of the 1907 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, Virginia|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.
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.

Revision as of 14:51, 9 September 2008

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, led by Robert E. Lee, responded and quelled the raid. Subsequently, John Brown was tried and executed by hanging in Charles Town on December 2, 1859.

In 1860 the Democratic Party split into northern and southern factors over the issue of slavery in the territories and Stephen Douglas’s support for popular sovereignty. After failing in both Charleston and Baltimore to nominate a single candidate acceptable to the South, Southern Democrats held their convention in Richmond, Virginia on June 26, 1860 and nominated John C. Breckinridge as their party candidate for President.[1]

When Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected as president, Virginians were concerned about the implications for their state. While a majority of the state would look for compromises to the sectional differences, most people also opposed any restrictions on slaveholders’ rights.[2] As the state watched to see what South Carolina would do, many Unionists felt that the greatest danger to the state came not from the North but from "rash secession" by the lower South.[3]

Secession timeline

Call for secession convention

On November 15, 1860 Virginia Governor John Letcher called for a special session of the Virginia General Assembly to consider, among other issues, the creation of a secession convention. The legislature convened on January 7 and approved the convention on January 14. On January 19 the General Assembly called for a national Peace Conference, led by Virginia's former President of the United States, John Tyler, to be held in Washington on February 4, the same date that elections were scheduled for delegates to the secession convention.[4]

The election of convention delegates drew 145,700 voters who elected, by county, 152 representatives. Thirty of these delegates were secessionists, thirty were unionists, and ninety two were moderates who were not clearly identified with either of the first two groups. Nevertheless, advocates of immediate secession were clearly outnumbered.[5] Simultaneous to this election, six Southern states seceded to form the Confederate States of America on February 4.

Secession convention

Following the creation and organization of the Confederate States government in the early months of 1861, on April 4, the Virginia Secession Convention met and voted against secession. The strong pro-Union sentiment in Virginia began to alter after the April 12 Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter, prompting the convention to reconvene on April 13 to reconsider Virginia's position, given the outbreak of hostilities.[6] With Virginia still in a delicate balance, with no firm determination yet to secede,[citation needed] sentiment turned more strongly toward secession on April 15, following President Abraham Lincoln's call to all states that had not declared a secession, including Virginia, for troops to assist in halting the insurrection and recovering the captured forts.[7]

War Department, Washington, April 15, 1861. To His Excellency the Governor of Virginia: Sir: Under the act of Congress for calling forth "militia to execute the laws of the Union, supress insurrections, repel invasions, etc.," approved February 28, 1795, I have the honor to request your Excellency to cause to be immediately detached from the militia of your State the quota designated in the table below, to serve as infantry or rifleman for the period of three months, unless sooner discharged. Your Excellency will please communicate to me the time, at or about, which your quota will be expected at its rendezvous, as it will be met as soon as practicable by an officer to muster it into the service and pay of the united States.

— Simon Cameron, Secretary of War.

The quota for Virginia attached called for three regiments of 2,340 men to rendezvous at Staunton, Wheeling and Gordonsville. Governor Letcher and the recently reconvened Virginia Secession Convention considered this request from Lincoln "for troops to invade and coerce"[8][unreliable source?]) lacking in constitutional authority, and out of scope of the Act of 1795. Governor Letcher's "reply to that call wrought an immediate change in the current of public opinion in Virginia".[9], whereupon he issued the following reply:

Exectutive Department, Richmond, Va., April 15, 1861. Hon. Simon Cameron, Secretary of War: Sir: I have received your telegram of the 15th, the genuineness of which I doubted. Since that time I have received your communications mailed the same day, in which I am requested to detach from the militia of the State of Virginia "the quota assigned in a table," which you append, "to serve as infantry or rifleman for the period of three months, unless sooner discharged." In reply to this communication, I have only to say that the militia of Virginia will not be furnished to the powers at Washington for any such use or purpose as they have in view. Your object is to subjugate the Southern States, and a requisition made upon me for such an object - an object, in my judgment, not within the purview of the Constitution or the act of 1795 - will not be complied with. You have chosen to inaugurate civil war, and, having done so, we will meet it in a spirit as determined as the administration has exhibited toward the South.

— Respectfully, John Letcher

Thereafter, the secession convention voted on April 17, provisionally, to secede, on the condition of ratification by a statewide referendum.

The Governor of Virginia immediately began mobilizing the Virginia State Militia to strategic points around the state. Former Governor Henry Wise had arranged with militia officers on April 16, before the final vote, to seize the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry and the Gosport Navy Yard in Norfolk. On April 17 in the debate over secession Wise announced to the convention that these events were already in motion. On April 18 the arsenal was captured and most of the machinery was moved to Richmond. At Gosport, the Union Navy, believing that several thousand militia were headed their way, evacuated and abandoned Norfolk, Virginia and the navy yard, burning and torching as many of the ships and facilities as possible. [10]

Colonel Robert E. Lee resigned his U.S. Army commission, turning down an offer of command for the U.S. Army.

Secession ratification

By popular vote, Virginians ratified the articles of secession on May 23, 1861 with a vote of 132,201 to 37,451 in favor of, and ratifying the seccesion proposal. The results were initially held in secret for a couple of days, giving Virginia military forces time to officially respond in the defenses of Virginia, by making final preparation for the defense of Virginia.

After notification of the election results by telegram, Colonel Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson moved to shut down the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the Great Train Raid of 1861. [1] The following day, the Union army moved into northern Virginia and captured Alexandria without a fight.

Pending the outcome of the ratification election, on May 6 provisional plans were made to move the Confederate capital from Montgomery, Alabama to Richmond. Once the ratification was made official, the move of the capital to Virginia was enacted on May 29.

Virginia during the war

The ensuing conflict was generally referred to by notable Virginias as "The War Between the States", as in the title of the 1907 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. Local rule was reestablished on October 5, 1869. On January 26, 1870, when the U.S. Congress approved a new Virginia constitution, Virginia's representatives membership to the Congress was restored. This has been traditionally known as the "readmittance" of the Commonwealth of Virginia to the United States.

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.[11] 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.[12] 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.[13]

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 [2].

Notable Civil War leaders (Confederate) from Virginia

Notes

  1. ^ McPherson pp. 213-216
  2. ^ Link p. 217. Link wrote, “Although a majority probably favored compromise, most opposed any weakening of slaveholders’ protections. Even so-called moderates -- mostly Whigs and Douglas Democrats -- opposed the sacrifice of these rights and they rejected ant acquiescence or ‘submission’ to federal coercion. ... To a growing body of Virginians, Lincoln’s election meant the onset of an active war against southern institutions. These men shared a common fear of northern Republicans and a common suspicion of a northern conspiracy against the South.”
  3. ^ Ayers p. 86
  4. ^ Link p. 224
  5. ^ Robertson p. 3-4. Robertson, clarifying the position of the moderates, wrote, "However, the term 'unionist' had an altogether different meaning in Virginia at the time. Richmond delegates Marmaduke Johnson and William McFarland were both outspoken conservatives. Yet in their respective campaigns, each declared that he was in favor of separation from the Union if the federal government did not guarantee protection of slavery everywhere. Moreover, the threat of the federal government's using coercion became an overriding factor in the debates that followed."
  6. ^ "On This Day: Legislative Moments in Virginia History". Virginia Historical Society.
  7. ^ "Lincoln Call for Troops".(page includes TWO documents)
  8. ^ Evans, Vol.III, pt. 1, p. 38
  9. ^ Evans, Vol.III, pt. 1, p. 38
  10. ^ McPherson p. 279-280
  11. ^ Ambler, p. 309
  12. ^ Curry, pgs. 141-149
  13. ^ Lewis, pgs. 190-192

References

  • Ambler, Charles, A History of West Virginia, Prentice-Hall, 1933.
  • Ayers, Edward L. In the Presence of Mine Enemies: The Civil War in the Heart of America 1859-1863. (2003) ISBN 0-393-32601-2.
  • Curry, Richard Orr, A House Divided, University of Pittsburgh, 1964.
  • Hodges, Vivienne, PhD, Virginia SOL Coach: Virginia Studies, Educational Design, 1999. ISBN 087694764X
  • Lewis, Virgil A. and Comstock, Jim, History and Government of West Virginia, 1973.
  • Link, William A. Roots of Secession: Slavey and Politics in Antebellum Virginia. (2003) ISBN 0-8078-2771-1.
  • McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom. (1988) ISBN 0-345-35942-9.
  • Randall, J. G., Civil War and Reconstruction, D.C. Heath and Company, 1966.
  • Robertson, James I. Jr. "The Virginia State Convention" in Virginia at War 1861. editors Davis, William C. and Robertson, James I. Jr. (2005) ISBN 0-8131-2372-0.

See also

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Virginia in the American Civil War.
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