Voting with heir Arms Civil War Military Enlistments and the Formation of West Virginia, 1861–1865 Scott A. MacKenzie F ew today associate West Virginia with slavery. Dating back to the state’s formation in 1863, historians have asserted that the loyal mountaineer population rejected Virginia’s secession because the western part of the state had virtually no connection to the ‘peculiar institution.’ On his inauguration day, the new state’s irst governor airmed a thesis about West Virginia’s formation that persists to this day. Arthur I. Boreman opined in his inaugural address that eastern neglect led to the state’s formation. Representatives from eastern Virginia exercised disproportionate inluence at the state capitol in Richmond and, he argued, used tax revenue to support improvements in their part of the state at the expense of the western counties. he region, he concluded, had more in common with neighboring Ohio and Pennsylvania than Virginia. Western resistance to secession was, therefore, preordained. Boreman mentioned slavery only twice, and downplayed its importance on both occasions. Secessionists claimed, he said, that adherence to the Union would reduce men “to a state of degradation worse than slavery itself.” He then asked loyal unionists, “Shall we object that slavery is destroyed as the result of the acts of those in rebellion, if the Union is thereby saved?” West Virginia’s independence and free status disproved both sentiments. His words have inluenced views of the Mountain State’s history ever since.1 If what Boreman said was true, then West Virginia was the only part of the United States unafected by the leading cause of the Civil War. His fellow citizens viewed the matter diferently. He presided over a divided population; secessionists believed his administration to be the illegitimate product of collaboration with the abolitionist Lincoln administration. Many unionists felt the same way. One issue drove those who sided with the Confederacy: slavery. Contrary to Boreman’s claims, slavery inluenced West Virginia’s history disproportionately to its numbers. With only 5 percent of its population enslaved, its white population lived comfortably with the presence of bondsmen and women. being proud Virginians gave them no reason to oppose the institution and good ones to support it. In 1861, secession forced whites to choose between siding with Lincoln and following their state into the Confederacy. he examples of six West Virginia counties that had both Union and Confederate enlistees demonstrate the powerful inluences of slavery and slaveholding on choosing sides. hese factors disprove Boreman’s statements and suggest new questions about the Mountain State’s formation. S U M M E R 2017 25 VOT I N G W I T H T H E I R A R M S Map of the Proposed State of New Virginia. New York Herald, May 18, 1861. WEST VIRGINIA STATE ARCHIVES In West Virginia’s history, slavery always mattered. he irst bondsmen and -women, though in limited numbers, came with the earliest white settlers in the 1780s. Masters tended to rank among the region’s more prominent citizens. he irst federal census, in 1790, recorded between 3 and 5 percent of the populations as enslaved of the only counties in the region at the time, Ohio, Monongalia, and Harrison. In 1850, the then thirty-ive counties contained seven thousand enslaved persons (4 percent); the numbers had declined to six thousand (or 3 percent) a decade later. he geographic distribution, however, varied widely. Table 1, below, indicates the proportion of slaves in each of the six counties in my sample. Jeferson and Hampshire each had above the average numbers with one-quarter and one-tenth of their respective populations enslaved. Wayne and Cabell had roughly the average ratios with between 2 and 6 percent. Ohio and Monongalia each had less than 1 percent, a nearly imperceptible number. Moreover, each sampled county, save Ohio, had negligible numbers of foreign-born persons. Non-southerners, especially foreigners, possessed less familiarity with slavery. More outsiders could, native-born Virginians feared, fail to support the institution. he low numbers of each meant that they need not have worried.2 Table 1: Total, enslaved, and foreign-born populations in sampled counties, 1850 and 1860. 1850 26 County TOTAL Whites Total slaves (%) Foreign-born (%) Cabell 6,299 5,902 389 (6) 140 (2) Hampshire 14,036 12,379 1,433 (10) 696 (5) Jefferson 15,357 10,476 4,341 (28) 598 (4) Monongalia 12,387 12,092 176 (1) 118 (>1) Ohio 18,006 17,612 164 (>1) 4,015 (22) Wayne 4,760 4,564 189 (4) 12 (>1) O H I O VA L L E Y H I S TO RY S C OT T A . M A C K E N Z I E 1860 Cabell 8,020 7,691 305 (4) 157 (2) Hampshire 13,913 12,478 1,213 (9) 451 (3) Jefferson 14,535 10,064 3,960 (27) 361 (2) Monongalia 13,048 12,901 101 (>1) 160 (1) Ohio 22,422 22,196 100 (>1) 5,510 (25) Wayne 6,747 6,604 143 (2) 27 (>1) Source: Data compiled from Historical Census Browser, University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center, accessed July 22, 2012, http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/collections/ stats/histcensus/index.html, site discontinued. Eastern Virginians did worry about their occidental neighbors. Tidewater planters viewed anyone outside of their class as a threat to their political and economic control. Since colonial times, they had secured their rule by limiting sufrage to property holders, which put most western Virginians—those in the Shenandoah Valley and southwestern and northwestern parts of the Old Dominion—at a disadvantage. An unfortunate episode during the 1829–30 constitutional debates heightened planters’ suspicions. After episodes of slave resistance and disloyalty during the War of 1812, many delegates—east and west alike—expressed a desire to gradually end slavery. Because they would lose the least from the process and it would mend relations with the East, northwesterners supported this idea. he motion failed by a close vote, but it had the opposite efect on in-state relations. Eastern planters accused their opponents, and the northwest in particular, of being abolitionists. For the next twenty years, they prevented changes to the Commonwealth’s constitution to keep government in their hands. With great reluctance, planters granted universal male sufrage in the 1851 constitution but insisted upon special tax provisions for slave property. Despite this lingering privilege, northwesterners, slaveholders or not, reveled in their new equal status in their state, which enhanced rather than reduced their support for slavery.3 he proliferation of connections to the outside world had little if any impact on the region’s demographics or politics. West Virginia’s early historians claimed that eastern neglect prompted the formation of their state. he truth is diferent. Numerous roads, turnpikes, steamboats, and bridges linked the region to the Atlantic ports, the Ohio River, the northern states, and the rest of the state. Other parts of the mountain South did not have the same level of transportation infrastructure. he Buncombe Trail connected western North Carolina with Tennessee and the Atlantic coast, for example. Railroads brought further enhancements. Northwestern Virginia received its iron rails at the same time as East Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, and even parts of Ohio. In 1853, the Baltimore and Ohio connected Harpers Ferry in Jeferson, cutting past Hampshire and Monongalia, and ending at Wheeling in Ohio County. A branch line moved through the central part of the region to end at Parkersburg S U M M E R 2017 27 VOT I N G W I T H T H E I R A R M S in Wood County on the Ohio River four years later. Some counties, however, lacked any improvements during the antebellum period. No turnpikes or railroads reached Wayne and Cabell counties before the war; steamboat services along the Ohio River made up the diference. Despite these connections, northwestern Virginia did not take on the characteristics of its free state neighbors. As table 1 shows, neither the free, enslaved, nor foreign-born populations of the sampled counties changed signiicantly in the 1850s. No inluxes of immigrants locked to the region to alter its demographics or economy.4 Wheeling, Virginia in 1850. The South in the Building of the Nation: A History of the Southern States, Volume I, (The Southern Historical Publication Society, 1909). NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY If anything, the region’s proslavery attitudes stifened in that pivotal decade. he annexation of western territories from Mexico after the 1846–48 war rekindled sectional disputes on the future of slavery. Free states sought to preserve these lands for white labor, while the slaveholding states insisted on their right to take property to the new territories. Northwestern Virginia stood irmly on the side of the latter. Whites rallied to protect themselves and their state from antislavery forces in the 1850s on two notable occasions. In 1856, the Massachusetts politician, businessman, and activist Eli hayer established a free labor colony in Ceredo, Wayne County. He and hundreds of white supporters came at the wrong time. he locals knew of his actions in the ighting between pro- and antislavery forces in Kansas Territory. he Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, an independent-minded but radical newspaper, praised the colony for bringing “men who have the heart and hands to go to work and rid out the wilds and open up the hills of our highly favored Western Virginia.” Others violently disagreed. 28 O H I O VA L L E Y H I S TO RY S C OT T A . M A C K E N Z I E he Democratic Fairmont True Virginian—which proudly boasted, “We do not exchange with the Wheeling Intelligencer”—called the colony “a humbug,” and urged the residents to “keep a civil tongue in their heads, and not slander the land that keeps them from starving.” Lawyer Albert Gallatin Jenkins of Cabell organized a petition that similarly urged the outside world to remember “the sentiment of the people of this place was not anti-slavery.” he colonists abandoned the region shortly thereafter. Northwestern whites also used the musket and sword in addition to the printing press and petition. In the wake of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry in Jeferson County, militia units throughout the region were mobilized. he Kanawha Rilemen gathered immediately but did not arrive in time. Wheeling’s Virginia State Fencibles did. he Democratic Wheeling Daily Union praised their response as proof of the region being “uncontaminated by her Abolitionist neighbors.” Whether inside or outside of formal politics, white northwestern Virginians ofered no place for opponents of slavery.5 Captain Albert’s party attacking participants in John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, November 5, 1859. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS he clearest signs of the region’s proslavery attitudes come from its presidential election returns. Parties split, fell, and rose during the turbulent slavery debates of the 1850s. As table 2 indicates, white northwestern Virginians preferred parties with unambiguous proslavery credentials. In 1852, the Whigs and Democrats, both of whom had such merits, split the sampled counties evenly. Four years later, the American, or Know-Nothing, Party had assumed the place of the fallen Whig Party. Democrats assailed their opponents with labels of “abolitionist” to win all six of the sampled counties, including virtually slaveless Ohio. Part of their victory stemmed from signiicant Know-Nothing gains in S U M M E R 2017 29 VOT I N G W I T H T H E I R A R M S state politics in 1855, including the election of John S. Carlile to Congress. In 1860, with secession brewing, voters searched for compromise that would preserve both the Union and slavery. he Constitutional Union Party, led by John Bell of Tennessee, replaced the Know-Nothings, while rifts between Democrats produced two competing tickets, headed by John Breckinridge of Kentucky and Stephen Douglas of Illinois. A fourth party, the Republicans, ielded Illinoisan Abraham Lincoln, but many northwestern counties refused to allow the controversial antislavery party onto its ballots. Subsequently, Bell won Jeferson, Ohio, and Wayne. Douglas took Monongalia and Cabell. Breckinridge received Hampshire. he switch is signiicant. Northwestern Virginians placed their faith in moderate parties instead of the more radical Breckinridge Democrats and the Lincoln Republicans. he national result diferently. Lincoln won every northern state except New Jersey. His election prompted secessionist movements across the slaveholding states. he seven Lower South states had departed by the time he took oice in March 1861. he eight Border and Upper South states, Virginia included, resisted the wave but uneasily awaited what the new administration would do.6 When Virginia’s convention met in early 1861 to consider secession, the northwest played a pivotal role in preventing secession. A coalition of conservatives, moderates, and outright opponents of secession from across the state, gathered to forestall the secessionists. Only a common belief in maintaining the Union as it was (i.e., with slavery) held them together. Table 2. 1852, 1856 and 1860 presidential returns from sampled counties. 1852 1856 1860 County Dema Whig Dem American Repb NDc SDd CUPe Rep Cabell 424 457 463 320 0 407 161 316 4 Hampshire 1115 743 1168 747 0 75 1054 878 1 Jefferson 898 958 946 845 0 440 458 959 0 Monongalia 1308 688 1447 609 0 757 601 622 77 Ohio 1186 1452 1632 1464 108 716 915 1202 771 Wayne 206 225 362 269 0 82 166 326 10 Source: Presidential returns are from Michael J. Dubin, United States Presidential Elections, 1788–1860: The Official Returns by State and County (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2002). Notes: a. Democrats. b. Republicans. c. National Democrats. d. Southern Democrats. e. Constitutional Union Party. 30 O H I O VA L L E Y H I S TO RY S C OT T A . M A C K E N Z I E Each of the counties studied here sent unionist delegates to the convention. he region’s representatives made their allegiance to slavery clear. Waitman T. Willey of Monongalia declared on March 4 that secession meant the “commencement of the abolition of slavery, irst in Virginia, then in the Border States, and ultimately throughout the Union.” hree days later, John S. Carlile of Harrison outlined his region’s allegiances to Virginia, the South, and slavery. “A more loyal people to the soil of their birth is nowhere to be found,” he said, “a people devoted to the institution of slavery, not because of their pecuniary interest in it, but because it is an institution of the State.” heir sentiments undermined attempts at secession in March and early April. Fellow unionists rewarded northwestern delegates’ allegiance to slavery by approving Willey’s motion to resolve the outstanding taxation issue in the constitution. he inal obstacle to Virginia unity appeared ready to fall, but the measure was approved on April 11, 1861. South Carolina’s attack on Fort Sumter the next day shattered the unionist coalition in the convention and, with it, all hopes of keeping Virginia united and loyal.7 Waitman T. Willey (1811-1900). John S. Carlile (1817-1878). WEST VIRGINIA STATE ARCHIVES WEST VIRGINIA STATE ARCHIVES he shock of secession started the West Virginia statehood movement. On April 17, the convention voted to send a secession ordinance to the voters. All but four of the twenty-six northwestern delegates opposed it. Each from the six sample counties voted in the negative. Carlile and other western unionists met in a Richmond hotel to discuss their course of action. hey agreed to return to Wheeling, but on their way back they stopped in Washington to see Lincoln. No record exists of the meeting, but the unionists’ actions in subsequent days suggest that the president encouraged them to resist the secessionists as much as possible, S U M M E R 2017 31 VOT I N G W I T H T H E I R A R M S but without his interference. He employed the same approach he adopted for Missouri, Kentucky, and Delaware. Necessity required intervention in Maryland, but the ensuing controversy bedeviled Lincoln for years. In the weeks before the referendum, unionists organized rallies to mobilize opposition to secession. Willey withdrew from the movement, but in Clarksburg on April 22 Carlile gathered hundreds who denounced Richmond for “inaugurating a war without consulting those in whose name they profess to act.” He also called for selected delegates to attend a convention in Wheeling in mid-May. Although its membership came mostly from the northern panhandle and neighboring counties, Carlile shocked the delegates with a plan to form a new state. On May 14, he moved that a committee “be instructed to report a constitution and form of government for said State, to be called the State of New Virginia.” Only days before, few had dared to contemplate such a situation, but the meeting quickly endorsed the idea. he delegates cheered three times for the new state, then three times more for Carlile.8 Delegates at the Second Wheeling Convention, June 11-25, 1861. Harper’s Weekly, July 6, 1861. WEST VIRGINIA STATE ARCHIVES 32 O H I O VA L L E Y H I S TO RY S C OT T A . M A C K E N Z I E Secessionists retaliated against this purported treason. Believing that disunion was legal, inevitable, and necessary, they mobilized their supporters against Carlile and the unionists. hey had a harder time than their opponents, however. Joseph Johnson of Harrison County, a former governor, gathered a mere sixty men to a counter-rally in Clarksburg a few days after Carlile’s gathering attracted twelve hundred. A last-minute measure by the convention to resolve the taxation issue also izzled. Men joined militia groups around this time, but their leaders complained to Governor Letcher about the lack of support. On April 23, William P. Cooper, a Clarksburg newspaper editor, wrote to Letcher, “I can raise such a company,” which would be “comprised of our mountaineers, who I believe, will be as good men for actual Governor John Letcher (1813-1884). service as the world can provide.” However, on April LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 29, James M. H. Beale of Point Pleasant in Mason County was more honest. He pleaded to Letcher, “Give us arms. Give us arms.” he Kanawha Valley Star, meanwhile, issued an unsubtle message. “Should the abolitionists of Ohio send an invading army into Western Virginia, not a soldier among them will ever return alive. he mountain boys would shoot them down like dogs,” it declared. Although struggling to compete with the unionists’ organization, the secessionist cause in the northwest fully expected that it would prevail in the end.9 he weight of allegiances inally told in the May 23 referendum. Statewide, the measure passed by a wide margin, but the northwest opposed the measure by two to one. Of the sample counties, all of which had hitherto voted unionist, Hampshire and Jeferson buckled to support secession. he remainder voted to oppose it, as table 3 indicates. Election data ends here, but political activity did not. Two state governments, unionist and secessionist, claimed control over the northwest. In October 1861, the unionist Reorganized Government of Virginia held a referendum on forming a new state. While the measure passed overwhelmingly, only counties with a military presence posted returns. It held two more, in April 1862 and February 1863, to approve the new state’s constitution and adopt an emancipation measure as demanded by Congress. Carlile, and many other conservative unionists, bolted from the statehood movement for this sudden turn of events. Many cheered his departure. Upon statehood in June 1863, West Virginia held its own assembly in Wheeling and sent representatives to Washington. he secessionist government in Richmond and the Confederate Congress admitted senators and representatives from the region throughout the war. Each side tried to intimidate the other. When two Kanawha County men attended the Wheeling S U M M E R 2017 33 VOT I N G W I T H T H E I R A R M S Convention in late May, Col. Christopher Tompkins of the 22d Virginia, a regiment recruited in the Kanawha Valley, declared to the local population: “Men of Virginia! Men of Kanawha! To Arms! You cannot serve two masters. You have not the right to repudiate allegiance to your own State. Be not seduced by his sophistry or intimidated by his treats. Rise and strike for your iresides and altars.” Table 3: May 23, 1861, Virginia secession referendum results, by sampled county. County For Against Cabell 271 921 Wayne 258 758 Jefferson 813 365 Hampshire 1,188 788 Ohio 159 3,156 Monongalia 123 2,232 Source: Richard Orr Curry, A House Divided: A Study of Statehood Politics and the Copperhead Movement in West Virginia (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1964), 142–44. He was too late. In July, a Federal army occupied the Kanawha Valley. Secessionist regiments, including Tompkins’s, retreated eastward. hey found themselves separated not only from their families, but unable to enforce the laws of their state in their home areas.10 For young men, only one option remained: enlistment. Choosing sides became a political act, but explaining why is not easy. Few West Virginia Civil War soldiers left letters or diaries that state their motivations for enlisting. he data collected upon their joining the Union and Confederate armies provides a quantitative method to cut through this shortcoming. Recruiters took down a soldier’s name, age, place of birth, and residence upon enlistment. Unit clerks updated this information with promotions, transfers, wounds, or deaths as needed. After the war, the U.S. War Department collated this Kanawha Falls, West Virginia. The South in the information into service records for pensioning pur- Building of the Nation: A History of the Southern poses. he George Tyler Moore Center for the Study States, Volume I, (The Southern Historical Publication Society, 1909). of the Civil War at Shepherd University used these NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY records as part of a multimedia project. It estimated that as many as twenty thousand men fought on each side, with an additional ten thousand from other states serving in the state’s Union regiments. heir work, however, says little about the soldiers’ social backgrounds.11 34 O H I O VA L L E Y H I S TO RY S C OT T A . M A C K E N Z I E Comparing enlistment records to the federal census reveals numerous discernable patterns of political behavior. he sampled counties have two important criteria. First, they had both Union and Confederate soldiers accredited to it. Others had only one or the other or had mainly guerrilla forces, for whom few sources exist to study. Second, they also had a major transportation network: a road, railroad, or river to another place allowed external inluences to shape their politics, economics, and culture. West Virginia had extensive ties to Ohio and Pennsylvania. Yet, three observations stand out from this analysis. First, Confederates tended to be Virginia natives or had one or both parents also born in Virginia or had at least lived in the region. Second, Union soldiers tended not to come from Virginia at all. Northern- and foreign-born enlistees predominated in those units. hird, Confederates tended to have clear links to slavery and slaveholding out of proportion to their actual numbers. With Confederates having actual ties to the region, they had clearer motivations to ight for its control.12 Jeferson County, nestled atop the Shenandoah Valley, had the largest number of slaves in the sample. Over one quarter (3,950) of its population of 14,525 consisted of enslaved persons. he Baltimore & Ohio Railroad ran straight through the county, allowing its agriculture and manufactured goods ready access to the Atlantic and the west. Yet, its population strongly supported the rebellion. Its Confederate enlistees show strong attachments to the institution and the social connections between slaveholders. Between April 18, 1861, the day after the Virginia convention voted to secede, and the end of the month, more than three hundred men joined the 2d Virginia Infantry. A sample of forty-one men indicates strong connections to slavery. Of those, none owned slaves, but a dozen came from households who did. he twenty-year-old John William Rider, for example, lived in his farmer father’s home with ten slaves. he other recruits had similar stories. he war put them as well as their families in the iring line. Many of the war’s major battles occurred in or near the county, including Antietam, which occurred over the river in Washington County, Maryland.13 In contrast, the same conditions prevented Union recruiting in the county. While hundreds of Jefersonians joined Confederate service within weeks of Virginia’s secession, no Federal soldiers came the county. After the war, the State of West Virginia accredited a mere twenty-six enlistees from the entire war to Jeferson County. Yet none of them lived there. Moreover, only three of these men appear in the census. William Gill and George Snider of Company L, 1st West Virginia Cavalry, came from Loudon County and Frederick County, Virginia. William McAferty of Company B, 1st West Virginia Infantry, came from Frederick County, Maryland. he origins of the others, mostly from Battery A, 1st West Virginia Light Artillery, are unknown but have German names, a rarity in Jeferson. he foreign born made up only 2 percent of its 1860 S U M M E R 2017 35 VOT I N G W I T H T H E I R A R M S population. hey most likely came from Maryland or Pennsylvania. Exactly why postwar authorities would credit men to this county remains unclear; they may have wished to stake a claim to the area. Further up the Potomac, Hampshire County produced soldiers in similar ways as Jeferson. More mountainous than its neighbor, its population held 1,213 enslaved persons, or 10 percent of its total, but still elicited strong Confederate support. Its economy thrived with ready access to the Baltimore and Ohio which ran through neighboring Maryland. Enlistments there relected neighborhood and kinship connections as much as direct slave ownership. Confederates signed up as soon as the war began, mostly into the Virginia Partisan Rangers. In 1862, most transferred to the 18th Virginia Cavalry, led by Col. George Imboden, the brother of Brig. Gen. John D. Imboden who raided through northwestern Virginia in April 1863. Yet, of the eighty-six Hampshire men who the joined Confederate army, all but six came from the eastern part of the county. In addition, three more lived in Romney and another in Springield, the only two towns in that eastern half. Only one lived in the west. hese difering sentiments, Stephen Smith has argued, led it to split of to form Mineral County in 1868. Only one owned a slave, while ive more came from slaveholding families. All but ive were born in Virginia. A remarkable twenty-four had families of their own, a much higher rate than in other counties. Aside from the lower rate of slaveholding, Hampshire’s Confederates had backgrounds similar to those in Jeferson.14 he county’s Union enlistees contrasted with their enemies in every way. he 4th West Virginia Infantry started recruiting there from the outset. Yet, like Jeferson, not one of its recruits came from the county. All but two came from neighboring Allegany County, Maryland. he others lived in next-door Hardy County and in more distant Shenandoah County, Virginia. Its recruits bore little resemblance to their counterparts. Exactly half, or eighteen men, were born in Maryland, while a dozen had foreign birth, varying from Ireland and Scotland to the various German states. Only one, William Broadwater of Maryland, came from a slaveholding home. Most families had little if any property. While the Confederates could make strong claims to be ighting for their homes, Hampshire’s Union soldiers had virtually no ties to the area. Indeed, the outside residence and little wealth indicate that the Federal army assigned recruits to counties to stake a political claim there. Despite having few slaves and strong connections to northern states, Monongalia County still experienced trouble recruiting for the Union. he county had both steamboat and railroad connections to Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Wheeling. Its population enthusiastically opposed secession and supported statehood. Waitman T. Willey, one of the most prominent statemakers, came from its largest city, Morgantown. In 1860, he owned 2 of the county’s 101 enslaved persons in 1860. Yet, enlistment patterns reveal less enthusiasm for the Union 36 O H I O VA L L E Y H I S TO RY S C OT T A . M A C K E N Z I E than previously believed. Nearly half of Monongalia County’s soldiers who enlisted in 1861 came from outside the county. he men who joined the 3rd and 7th West Virginia Infantry regiments consisted of sixty-eight Monongalia residents, two from neighboring Preston County, but also a whopping ifty-one from Pennsylvania. Of those, forty-eight came from Greene County, directly across the border, and one each from Indiana, Fayette, and Allegheny Counties. Some may have had kinship ties in Pennsylvania, yet the large number of men from Greene County, seventeen of the forty-eight, suggests active recruitment there. Only one soldier came from a slaveholding family. Henry Lazier of Morgantown, a 29-year old merchant, lived with his father who owned three slaves, one of whom was 107 years old. Most held little wealth if any. As in Hampshire, the large number of outsiders indicates that Monongalians had reservations about contemporary afairs. Petition from citizens of Monongalia County, requesting West Virginia’s admission into the Union (1862). NATIONAL ARCHIVES S U M M E R 2017 37 VOT I N G W I T H T H E I R A R M S Volunteers for the Union Army assemble in Morgantown, Monongalia County, West Virginia (1861). WEST VIRGINIA AND REGIONAL HISTORY CENTER, WVU LIBRARIES Monongalia’s Confederates enlisted in response to the fortunes of war. Only six joined in 1861, ive of whom marched south to Marion County to join the 31st Virginia Infantry. he remaining man, Lt. Col. Jonathan McGee Heck of the 25th Virginia Infantry, represented the county in the Commonwealth’s secessionist legislature. he remaining twenty-eight who signed up later in the war joined the 20th Virginia Cavalry in response to emancipation. Its colonel, Dudley Evans, was the son of a wealthy farmer. Four men joined in February 1863 after the Wiley Amendment on gradual emancipation came before the state voters. Several others joined when a Confederate army led by William S. “Grumble” Jones and John D. Imboden raided through central West Virginia in April to May 1863. heir bold act, which ran throughout the region, may have convinced previously reluctant men that the Confederate cause could still overturn the “abolitionization” of their home region. None, notably, owned any slaves or came from a slaveholding household. Brothers John and Pierce Jamison joined the 20th Cavalry; both lived with their father John Jamison, a Virginia-born farmer with $10,000 in personal wealth and $1,700 in real estate but no slaves. All but one Monongalia Confederate was born in Virginia; he, Lemon Tennant, was born in Pennsylvania but worked for a Virginia-born farmer. Not all, however, remained with the ranks for long. homas H. Steele’s record indicates that he “tested” the Rebel cause by joining and then deserting the 20th Cavalry after one week during the JonesImboden raid. Although coming from limited sources, these Confederates demonstrate how much anti-Union sentiment lingered late into the war.15 38 O H I O VA L L E Y H I S TO RY S C OT T A . M A C K E N Z I E Even populous and nearly slaveless Ohio County in the northern panhandle also recruited from outside its borders. As the terminus of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad from the east, and the Central Ohio from the west, the city of Wheeling occupied a commanding place in the region. Its mere one hundred slaves toiled invisibly in the large (22,422) population that had over one-quarter foreign born people, with many northerners. Yet, enlistment records indicate hesitation among its native-born Virginians. A random sample of thirty-six men who enlisted in the 1st West Virginia Infantry in 1861 indicates that many came Colonel Dudley Evans (1838-1910). from neighboring Ohio and Pennsylvania WEST VIRGINIA AND REGIONAL HISTORY CENTER, counties as well as elsewhere in northwestWVU LIBRARIES ern Virginia. State natives made up twentyone of those men, including twelve from the city of Wheeling and four others from elsewhere in the county. Five came from Lewis, Marshall and Monongalia Counties. Ten others lived in neighboring Ohio counties, particularly Belmont and Jeferson, immediately across the river from Wheeling. A further four resided on the other side of the panhandle in Washington County, Pennsylvania. Enlistments from 1862 indicate that more Virginians began to sign up. Of twenty-six soldiers joining the 12th West Virginia Infantry and other units, ten lived in Marshall County, four in Ohio, two in Ritchie, and one in Wetzel. Ohio provided two each from Jeferson and Belmont and one from Gallia, further south along the river. Indiana County, Pennsylvania provided another. Some of the men in either group came from wealthy backgrounds. Jackson D. Porter of the 1st West Virginia Cavalry lived with his mother in Ohio County. he Pennsylvania-born Elizabeth Porter held $12,000 in personal wealth and $2,000 in real estate. Many had family born in one of the three states. Some immigrants appear in the sample, particularly English, Irish and German born. Ohio County’s Confederates, in contrast, tended to be native-born Virginians with ties to slavery. Most joined the Shriver Greys militia company. Of forty recruits found in the census, thirty-six came from Virginia—twenty-six from Wheeling; four from elsewhere in Ohio County; three from Brooke County; two from Marshall, and one from Hancock County, also in the northern panhandle. In contrast to the unionists, a mere four came from across the river in Ohio; three from Belmont, and one from Columbiana County. he census suggests reasons men would cross the border to join the Confederates. Kinship ties may have convinced Virginia-born S U M M E R 2017 39 VOT I N G W I T H T H E I R A R M S Albert Patton of Belmont to enlist. William Garner, also of Belmont, had Irish-born parents but may have previously lived in Virginia, because his sister was born there. Many came from wealthy families, and four came from slaveholding backgrounds. A hostile local population, federal courts liberally handing out treason indictments, and military occupation made these men and their allegiances unwelcome. Further south, Cabell and Wayne Counties ofer experiences that contrast with the other four in the sample. If the others had railroads, this remote part of northwestern Virginia had only steamboat service to connect it to the outside world, and those ties bound them just to one northern state, Ohio, and one border state, Kentucky. hese factors, combined with the ownership of few slaves should have made them support the Union cause. Instead, they became fanatical Confederates, turning their spot on the Ohio River into a potential Vicksburg. Federal enlistments did not begin until late 1862, when the 3d West Virginia Cavalry opened its ranks. Even then, only six of the forty-one men accredited to Cabell appeared in the 1860 census. And from that small number, only one—Addison Newman—came from the county. he remaining ive came from Gallia and Lawrence Counties, across the river in Ohio. he demographics reveal few men of any wealth or status. Only John S. Williams of Gallia had any wealth at all ($800 in personal holdings and $150 in real estate) and had a family. his may indicate that West Virginia recruiters had reached the limit of their pool. With no ties the county, Cabell County’s Union soldiers occupied rather than served the population. Confederates, however, had extensive ties to the community. he South’s recruiters had no diiculties inding men, even in a county so far removed from eastern Virginia. he presence of Albert Gallatin Jenkins, a Harvard-educated lawyer, former U.S. congressman, Confederate congressman, and slaveholder, gave the Confederate cause greater legitimacy. As soon as Virginia seceded, Jenkins organized many men under his personal command. He would lead them until his death in combat in 1864. A sample of eight of his soldiers who joined that year included three other slaveholders. Many men also came from similarly wealthy backgrounds, among them George Holderby, an oicer with Company E, 8th Virginia Cavalry, who held $9,500 in personal wealth and $8,500 in real estate, yet lived in a hotel. Of the eight, six lived in Cabell, while two others came from Meigs County, Ohio. One of those, Maurice Pennybacker, was Virginia-born. here was so much Confederate sympathy in Wayne that unionists retaliated against their foes Albert Gallatin Jenkins (1830-1864). in November 1861 by burning the town of Guyandotte. WEST VIRGINIA AND REGIONAL HISTORY CENTER, Modern-day Huntington was built nearby.16 WVU LIBRARIES 40 O H I O VA L L E Y H I S TO RY S C OT T A . M A C K E N Z I E Green Bottom, home of Albert Gallatin Jenkins, in Cabell County, West Virginia (Undated). WEST VIRGINIA AND REGIONAL HISTORY CENTER, WVU LIBRARIES Into 1862 and beyond, Cabell continued providing Confederate soldiers. Of twenty-three men who enlisted after 1861, thirteen came from Cabell, four from Putnam, and one each from Boone, Mason, Brooke (in the northern panhandle), and Greenbrier (to the east along the Shenandoah Valley). It is not clear how the latter two men arrived in Cabell. Most came from wealthy backgrounds. Esom Riggs of the 8th Virginia Cavalry, lived in Cabell County with his mother, who held $4,000 in personal wealth and $3,000 in real estate. Two men came from slaveholding families. Some, like the 16th Virginia Cavalry’s Cpl. Ephraim Kinnaird, held little wealth. he Virginia-born day laborer owned no wealth; his father held just $25 in real estate. More men of similar backgrounds enlisted in 1863 and 1864. John Farley, a Virginia-born farmer with $300 in property, left his wife and ive children to join Company D of the 34th Virginia. John Everett, the son of a slaveholder, waited until his eighteenth birthday in 1863 to enlist in the 8th Virginia Cavalry. he wavelike enlistment patterns suggest that Cabell County enthusiastically supported the Confederacy, even if some recruits took a “wait-and-see” approach to the war. Confederate Cabell County’s legacy survives today in Jenkins’s plantation, Greenbottom, now a museum. Wayne County had a similar experience even though it had fewer ties to the slave economy than Cabell. As with its neighbor, no Federal soldiers came from within its borders. Postwar records accredited more than 250 Wayne County men entering Federal service during the war. Yet, of the 87 men who enlisted in 1861, none lived there. Like Jeferson and Hampshire, much better connected to the slave economy than Wayne, 82 men came from neighboring Lawrence S U M M E R 2017 41 VOT I N G W I T H T H E I R A R M S County, Ohio, and another ive joined from Boyd County, Kentucky. One of those, William Kennedy, was an Irish-born blacksmith with $200 in property. he records conirm that many men had ties to two or even all three of these counties. William Hall, for instance, who enlisted in the 4th West Virginia Infantry in December 1861 was born in Ohio and lived in Boyd County with his Virginiaborn father. Few had any personal or family wealth. Even fewer had families. One exception, Illinois-born John McCommas of Lawrence County, left a wife and six children behind to serve in Battery B, 1st West Virginia Light Artillery. Confederates had no trouble inding men in Wayne. Over 450 recruits joined its Confederate units during the war. Recruiting began as soon as Virginia seceded. he example set by community leader Milton J. Ferguson, a local attorney, judge, and slaveholder, encouraged men to sign up, much as Jenkins had in Cabell. Of the sample from 1861, all came from Wayne, while no Federals did. Moreover, all but one were Virginia-born. hat one, Wales-born James Corns, a stonemason with a wife and ive children, became colonel of the 8th Virginia Cavalry. None owned slaves, and few had much wealth. he men who enlisted in 1862, possibly inspired by Loring’s invasion of the Kanawha Valley, consisted of much wealthier men. Harrison D. Stuart of the 8th Virginia Cavalry had no property of his own, but his father, Virginia-born William Stuart, held $2,400 in personal wealth and $2,000 in real estate. Of thirty-one men in the sample, twenty-three came from Wayne, one from Logan, and two from Cabell. Four came from other states, including one each from Pike, Lawrence. And Boyd counties in Kentucky and another from Lawrence County, Ohio. hat man, Hiram Grizzle of the 16th Virginia Cavalry, was Virginia-born and may have returned home to ight for his family. hese tight local connections limited the appeal of unionism in Wayne. Unfortunately for Ferguson, Stuart, and Grizzle, their opponents found all the recruits they needed across the river in Ohio. It is no surprise that the local airport is named for Ferguson. Clearly, slavery inluenced sectional choices among West Virginia’s soldiers. Enlistment patterns in the six sampled counties indicate strong correlations between slaveholding and military service. his observation challenges the idea spread by Governor Boreman’s inaugural address. Slavery was, in fact, extremely important to West Virginia’s formation; the region’s political history consisted of frequent defenses against antislavery elements. West Virginians initially resisted secession as a menace to slavery’s existence. Yet, when war began the imperative to protect the institution outweighed many commitments to the Union. he six counties studied in this essay indicate how slavery inluenced enlistments. Jeferson and Hampshire each had large numbers of slaves and subsequently became strongly secessionist despite being linked to northern states. Ohio and Monongalia had very few slaves and extensive transportation links to Ohio and Pennsylvania, states from which it needed to recruit. Wayne and Cabell contrast 42 O H I O VA L L E Y H I S TO RY S C OT T A . M A C K E N Z I E with the others. Despite having few slaves and still fewer ties to the outside world, they both strongly supported the Confederacy. he presence of two powerful slaveholding leaders turned their citizens into rebels in areas far removed from the centers of the Confederacy. In short, they voted with their arms. hese indings should convince scholars and the public to rethink West Virginia’s origins. he absence of Union soldiers from four of these counties, and large numbers of outside recruits from the other two, indicates much weaker support for the Union cause than previously believed. Even then, many unionists had more conservative leanings that put them closer to the secessionists than other loyalists. As such, West Virginia was a more divided place than Governor Boreman’s words would lead us to believe. In the end, neither alienation nor neglect divided Virginia. Slavery did. People today may take the issue for granted, a legacy of a century of misleading history. However, support for motivated contemporaries to stop men like Boreman who dared to turn slaveholding Virginians into abolitionist West Virginians. Slavery was, therefore, as important to the Mountain State as it was to any other border state, and future accounts should see its formation in this light. Many West Virginians voted with their arms to maintain the peculiar institution within their state. Map of the New State of West Virginia. New York Herald, December 14, 1862. WEST VIRGINIA STATE ARCHIVES S U M M E R 2017 43 VOT I N G W I T H T H E I R A R M S 44 1 he standard works on West Virginia’s formation are Virgil A. Lewis, History of West Virginia in Two Parts (Philadelphia: Hubbard Brothers, 1889); Charles Henry Ambler, Sectionalism in Virginia 1776–1861 (1964; 2nd ed., Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2008); Richard Orr Curry, A House Divided: Statehood Politics and the Copperhead Movement in West Virginia (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1964). On how little the literature has changed in a century, see James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: he Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 297–98; Allen C. Guelzo, Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 367; William A. Link, Roots of Secession: Slavery and Politics in Antebellum Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 9. “Inaugural Address of Governor Arthur I. Boreman, June 20, 1863,” West Virginia, Department of History and Culture, A State of Convenience: he Creation of West Virginia, accessed February 7, 2017, http://www.wvculture.org/History/government/governors/boremania.html. 2 Ohio County had 281, or 5 percent of its population enslaved in 1790; Monongalia had 154, or 3 percent; Harrison had sixty-seven slaves, or 3 percent. he thirtyive counties that made up the region of northwestern Virginia, deined by those north of the Kanawha River and west of the Shenandoah Valley, include Hampshire, Monongalia, Ohio, Harrison, Hardy, Randolph, Pendleton, Kanawha, Brooke, Wood, Mason, Cabell, Tyler, Lewis, Nicholas, Preston, Morgan, Logan, Fayette, Jackson, Marshall, Braxton, Marion, Wayne, Barbour, Ritchie, Taylor, Doddridge, Gilmer, Wetzel, Boone, Hancock, Putnam, and Wirt. Pleasants, Upshur, Calhoun, Roane, Tucker, Clay, and Webster each joined by 1860. Berkeley and Jeferson were initially included in the new state, but their populations resisted the measure until the Supreme Court ordered their accession. Data compiled from Historical Census Browser, University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center, accessed July 22, 2012, http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/index.html, site discontinued. 3 See David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Otis K. Rice, he Allegheny Frontier: West Virginia Beginnings, 1730–1830 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1970); Allison G. Freehling, Drift towards Dissolution: he Virginia Slavery Debate of 1831–1832 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982); Alan Taylor, he Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772–1832 (New York: Norton, 2014). 4 In his inaugural address, Arthur I. Boreman summed up this point this way: “he unfairness and inequality of legislation is manifest on every page of the statute book; they had an unjust majority in the Legislature by the O H I O VA L L E Y H I S TO RY original Constitution of the State, and have clung to it with the utmost tenacity ever since; they have collected heavy taxes from us, and have spent large sums in the construction of railroads and canals in the East, but have withheld appropriations from the West; they have refused to make any of the modern improvements by which trade and travel could be carried on from the one section to the other, thus treating us as strangers; our people could not get to the Capital of their State by any of the usual modes of traveling, without going through the State of Maryland and the District of Columbia.” “Inaugural Address of Governor Arthur I. Boreman, June 20, 1863.” See John C. Inscoe, Mountain Masters: Slavery and Sectional Conlict in Western North Carolina (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987); John C. Inscoe and Gordon B. McKinney, Heart of Confederate Appalachia: Western North Carolina in the Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000); Martin Crawford, Ashe County’s Civil War: Community and Society in the Appalachian South (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001); Noel C. Fisher, Partisan Politics and Guerrilla Warfare in East Tennessee, 1860–1869 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); W. Todd Groce, Mountain Rebels: East Tennessee Confederates in the Civil War, 1860–1870 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1999); Kenneth W. Noe, Southwest Virginia’s Railroad (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994); Kim Gruenwald, River of Enterprise: he Commercial Origins of Regional Identity in the Ohio Valley, 1790–1850 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), 150–56; Otis K. Rice and Stephen W. Brown, West Virginia: A History (1985; 2nd ed., Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1993), 100–101. 5 Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, Aug. 5, 1857, Jan. 11, 1860; Fairmont True Virginian, Sept. 7, 1857; Cooper’s Clarksburg Register, Sept. 25, 1857. 6 John David Bladek, “‘Virginia Is Middle Ground’: he Know-Nothing Party and the Virginia Gubernatorial Election of 1855,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 106 (1998): 119–28. he Republican Party’s weak showing in northwestern Virginia merits its reduction to a footnote. By comparison, Lincoln received more support in Delaware, Maryland, and Missouri and about the same in Kentucky. Statewide, the Republicans won 1.13 percent of Virginia’s votes. he Republicans received 23.72 percent in Delaware (Breckinridge won), 2.48 percent in Maryland (Breckinridge won), 10.28 percent in Missouri (Douglas won), and 0.93 percent in Kentucky (Bell won). David Liep, U.S. Election Atlas, accessed February 4, 2017, http://uselectionatlas.org/. See Richard G. Lowe, Republicans and Reconstruction in Virginia, 1856–1870 (Charlottesville: University Press to Virginia, 1991); Link, Roots of Secession; see also William E. Gienapp, Origins of the Republican Party, 1852–1856 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987). S C OT T A . M A C K E N Z I E 7 Daniel G. Crofts, Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989). For Virginia convention proceedings, see William W. Freehling and Craig M. Simpson, eds., Showdown in Virginia: he 1861 Convention and the Fate of the Union (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010). 8 “Clarksburg Convention,” and “Proceedings of the First Wheeling Convention, May 14, 1861,” available online at West Virginia, Department of History and Culture, A State of Convenience: he Creation of West Virginia, accessed August 1, 2016, http://www.wvculture.org/ history/statehood/clarksburgconvention.html, and http:// www.wvculture.org/history/statehood/wheelingconvention10514.html. For two recent works on Lincoln’s border state policies, see James L. Oakes, Freedom National: he Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861–1865 (New York: Norton, 2013) and William C. Harris, Lincoln and the Border States: Preserving the Union (Manhattan: University Press of Kansas, 2011). 9 Freehling and Simpson, Showdown in Virginia; William P. Cooper to Letcher, April 23, 1861, and James M. H. Beale to Letcher, April 29, 1861, both in Virginia. Governor (1860–1864: Letcher) Executive papers of Governor John Letcher, 1859–1863, Accession 36787, State Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia; Kanawha Valley Star (Charleston, VA), April 30, 1861. 10 he War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of Oicial Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 128 vols. (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1880–1901), ser. 1, vol. 2:51; Ethan Rafuse, McClellan’s War: he Failure of Moderation in the Struggle for the Union (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), 100–101. 11 Mark A. Snell, West Virginia and the Civil War: Mountaineers Are Always Free (Charleston, S.C.: History Press, 2011); see also Mountaineers of the Blue and Gray: he Civil War and West Virginia, CD-ROM (Shepherdstown, W.Va.: George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War, 2008). Numerous works have investigated the social backgrounds of Confederate soldiers; these include Joseph T. Glatthaar, General Lee’s Army: From Victory to Collapse (New York: Free Press, 2008) and the accompanying Soldiering in the Army of Northern Virginia: A Statistical Portrait of the Troops Who Served under Robert E. Lee (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011); Michael D. Pierson, Mutiny at Fort Jackson: he Untold Story of the Fall of New Orleans (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009); Mark A. Weitz, A Higher Duty: Desertion among Georgia Troops during the Civil War (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005); Martin Crawford, Ashe County’s Civil War: Community and Society in the Appalachian South (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001); Groce, Mountain Rebels; Kenneth W. Noe, “Battle against Traitors”: Unionist Middle Tennesseans in the Ninth Kentucky Infantry and What hey Fought For,” in Sister States, Enemy States: he Civil War in Kentucky and Tennessee, ed. Kent Dollar, Larry H. Whiteaker, and W. Calvin Dickinson (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2009). 12 On guerilla forces, see Kenneth W. Noe, “Who Were the Bushwhackers? Age, Class, Kin, and Western Virginia’s Confederate Guerrillas, 1861–1862,” Civil War History 49 (March 2003): 5–31. he data for all Union soldiers and most Confederates came from the database published by the George Tyler Moore Center at Shepherd University. he rest, mainly Confederates from Wayne, Cabell and Monongalia counties, comes from a list in Jack L. Dickinson’s Tattered Uniforms and Bright Bayonets: West Virginia’s Confederate Soldiers (Huntington, W.Va..: Marshall University Library Associates, 1995) and the USGENWEB Archives site for Ohio County’s Shriver Greys, accessed July 22, 2012, http://iles.usgwarchives.net/wv/ohio/military/shriver-arc. txt. Confederate Military History Extended Edition: A Library of Confederate States History in Seventeen Volumes, ed. Gen. Clement A. Evans of Georgia (1899; rep., Wilmington, N.C.: Broadfoot, 1987), 2:106–8. I cross-referenced these with relevant monographs from the Virginia Regimental History Series, listed in the notes below. My data set uses only men identiiable in the census, available online at Ancestry.com. In many cases, this number amounted to no more than one quarter of those listed on the rolls. Many had either similar names—for example, John Smith or variation thereof, or two or more men of similar age in the same county. 13 Millard K. Bushong, A History of Jeferson County, West Virginia (Charles Town, WV: Jeferson, 1941). 14 Roger U. Delauter, 18th Virginia Cavalry (2nd ed., Lynchburg, VA: H. E. Howard, 1985), 1–3. See also Stephen G. Smith, “Secession, War and Rebirth: he Civil War in West Virginia’s South Branch Valley of the Potomac” (Ph.D. diss., West Virginia University, 2000). 15 Richard L. Armstrong, 19th and 20th Virginia Cavalry (Lynchburg, VA.: H. E. Howard, 1994), 243; Spencer C. Tucker, Brigadier General John D. Imboden: Confederate Commander in the Shenandoah (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003), 112. See also Mark E. Bell, “‘In the Hearts of heir Countrymen as True Heroes’: A Socio-Economic, Political, and Military Portrait of the 1st Virginia (U.S.) Infantry, 1861” (M.A. thesis, Shippensburg University, 2000). 16 Joe Geiger Jr., he Civil War in Cabell County, West Virginia, 1861–1865 (Charleston, WV: Pictorial Histories, 1991), 55–64. See also “War-Time Reminiscences of James D. Sedinger Company E, 8th Virginia Cavalry (Border Rangers),” West Virginia History 51 (1992): 55–78. he remaining man was Neal Bryan, born in Ohio to an Ohio father and a Maine mother; his reasons for joining are unclear. S U M M E R 2017 45