West Virginia in the American Civil War

The U.S. state of West Virginia was formed out of western Virginia and added to the Union as a direct result of the American Civil War (see History of West Virginia). In the summer of 1861, Union troops under General George McClellan drove off Confederate troops under General Robert E. Lee. This essentially freed Unionists in the northwestern counties of Virginia to form their own government as a result of the Wheeling Convention. After Lee's departure, western Virginia continued to be a target of Confederate raids, even after the creation of the new state in 1863. These actions focused both on supplying the Confederate Army with provisions as well as attacking the vital Baltimore and Ohio Railroad that linked the northeast with the midwest, as exemplified in the Jones-Imboden Raid. Guerrilla warfare also gripped the new state, especially in the Allegheny Mountain counties to the east, where loyalties were much more divided than in the Unionist northwest part of the state.

On 17 April 1861, the Virginia state convention in Richmond declared secession. Nearly all delegates from counties west of the Allegheny Mountains voted against secession, and most people and officials in that area refused any directions from the secessionist state government.

On 15 May, western Virginia Unionists convened the first session of the Wheeling Convention. Many of the delegates were informally or self-appointed, so the Convention only denounced secession and called for a formal election of delegates. The elected delegates met in the second session on 11 June. On 20 June the Convention declared that by acceding to secession, the officials of the state government in Richmond had forfeited their offices, which were now vacant. The Convention then elected replacements for these state offices, creating the Restored Government of Virginia.

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