Virginia at War, 1863

Of primary interest to the part of western Virginia that became West Virginia during the year is James M. Prichard's "The Devil at Large: The contemporary documentation suffers from discrepancies and gaps, which some of the later recollections and narratives filled, sometimes imaginatively and sometimes reading backward from the feud to locate its causes in the bloody bushwhacking war that many localities in the divided counties of western Virginia suffered through during the Civil War.

Prichard's essay also highlights one of the principal unifying themes of this set of essays. While the war swirled around them, civilians struggled to understand what it meant for them and their culture. Their diaries, scrapbooks, and newspapers, the sermons they heard, the schoolrooms in which they studied, the scenes that they witness, the rumors that they heard, and even the children's play generated impressions that evolved into memories and myths and legends and historical accounts that helped them interpret the war even while it was still going on.

Those impressions and memories also influenced how they conveyed to the next generations what the Civil War had done to them and meant to them. With the th anniversary of the Civil War rapidly approaching, these reflections on how the national tragedy affected every person in every locality are particularly timely and remind us, even though it was a minority of Americans who fought in the Civil War, that the war deeply touched every person in a unique, complex, and irreversible way.

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Virginia in the American Civil War

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Virginia at War Series

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The quota of Virginia's state militia called for, in the table attached to this letter, was three regiments which would have a total of 2, 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" [33] lacking in constitutional authority, and out of scope of the Act of Governor Letcher's "reply to that call wrought an immediate change in the current of public opinion in Virginia".

Executive Department, Richmond, Va. Simon Cameron, Secretary of War: 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.

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 - 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.

Thereafter, the secession convention voted on April 17, provisionally, to secede, on the condition of ratification by a statewide referendum. That same day, the convention adopted an ordinance of secession , in which it stated the immediate cause of Virginia's declaring of secession, "the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States". Ayers, who felt that "even Fort Sumter might have passed, however, had Lincoln not called for the arming of volunteers", [35] wrote of the convention's final decision:. The decision came from what seemed to many white Virginians the unavoidable logic of the situation: Virginia was a slave state; the Republicans had announced their intention of limiting slavery; slavery was protected by the sovereignty of the state; an attack on that sovereignty by military force was an assault on the freedom of property and political representation that sovereignty embodied.

When the federal government protected the freedom and future of slavery by recognizing the sovereignty of the states, Virginia's Unionists could tolerate the insult the Republicans represented; when the federal government rejected that sovereignty, the threat could no longer be denied even by those who loved the Union. The Governor of Virginia immediately began mobilizing the Virginia State Militia to strategic points around the state.

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. Lee resigned his U. Army commission, turning down an offer of command of the Union army. He would ultimately join the Confederate army instead.

Virginia's ordinance of secession was ratified in a referendum held on May 23, , by a vote of , to 37, The Confederate Congress proclaimed Richmond to be new capital of the Confederacy and Confederate troops moved into northern Virginia before the referendum was held. The actual number of votes for or against secession are unknown since votes in many counties in northwestern and eastern Virginia where most of Virginia's unionists lived were "discarded or lost. The reaction to the referendum was swift on both sides. Confederate troops shut down the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad , one of Washington City 's two rail links to Ohio and points west.

The next day, the U. Army moved into northern Virginia. With both armies now in northern Virginia, the stage was set for war. Francis Pierpont was elected governor. The restored government raised troops to defend the Union and appointed two Senators to the United States Senate. During the summer of , parts of the northern, western and eastern Virginia, including the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, were returned to Union control. Norfolk returned to union control in May These areas would be administered by the Restored Government of Virginia, with the northwestern counties later becoming the new state of West Virginia.

In , Virginian and former Confederate soldier John S. Mosby , reflecting back on his role in the war, stated in a letter to friend that "I've always understood that we went to war on account of the thing we quarreled with the North about. I've never heard of any other cause of quarrel than slavery. Virginia's strategic resources played a key role in dictating the objectives of the war there. Its agricultural and industrial capacity, and the means of transporting this production, were major strategic targets for attack by Union forces and defense by Confederate forces throughout the war.

The Confederate's need for war materiel played a very significant role in its decision to move its capital from Montgomery, Alabama to Richmond in May , despite its dangerous northern location miles south of the United States capital in Washington, DC. It was mainly for this industrial reason that the Confederates fought so hard to defend the city. The capital of the Confederacy could easily be moved again if necessary, but Richmond's industry and factories could not be moved.

Richmond was the only large-scale industrial city controlled by the Confederacy during most of the Civil War. The city's warehouses were the supply and logistical center for Confederate forces. The city's Tredegar Iron Works , the 3rd largest foundry in the United States at the start of the war, produced most of the Confederate artillery, including a number of giant rail-mounted siege cannons. The company also manufactured railroad locomotives, boxcars and rails, as well as steam propulsion plants and iron plating for warships. Richmond's factories also produced guns, bullets, tents, uniforms, harnesses, leather goods, swords, bayonets, and other war materiel.

A number of textile plants, flour mills, brick factories, newspapers and book publishers were located in Richmond. Richmond had shipyards too, although they were smaller than the shipyards controlled by the Union in Norfolk, Virginia. With Virginia firmly under Union control, including the industrial centers of Richmond, Petersburg and Norfolk, the mostly rural and agricultural deep south lacked the industry needed to supply the Confederate war effort. At the outbreak of the war Petersburg, Virginia was second only to Richmond among Virginia cities in terms of population and industrialization.

The juncture of five railroads, it provided the only continuous rail link to the Deep South. In the western portion of the state as defined today , the Shenandoah Valley was considered the "Breadbasket of the Confederacy". The Blue Ridge mountains and similar sites had long been mined for iron, and though as the war progressed, shortages in manpower limited their production.

In southwest Virginia, the large salt works at Saltville provided a key source of salt to the Confederacy, essential in preserving food for use by the army.

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It was the target of two battles. The first and last significant battles of the war were held in Virginia, the first being the First Battle of Bull Run and the last being the Battle of Appomattox Courthouse. From May to April , Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy. The first major battle of the Civil War occurred on July 21, 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 Bull Run known as "First Battle of Manassas" in southern naming convention and the year went on without a major fight. Union general George B. McClellan was forced to retreat from Richmond by Robert E.

Review: Virginia at War, — TOCWOC - A Civil War Blog

Union general Pope was defeated at the Second Battle of Manassas. Following the one-sided Confederate victory Battle of Fredericksburg. When fighting resumed in the spring of , Union general Hooker was defeated at Chancellorsville by Lee's army. Ulysses Grant 's Overland Campaign was fought in Virginia. The campaign included battles of attrition at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor and ended with the Siege of Petersburg and Confederate defeat. In September , the Southern Punch , a newspaper based in Richmond, reiterated the Confederacy's cause:. In April , the Confederate regime fled Richmond as U.

As the Confederates fled, they set fire to Richmond's public works to prevent them from being used by U. It was the Union Army that saved the city from widespread conflagration and ruin. On April 17, , when the Richmond convention voted in favor of Virginia's secession from the United States, the 49 delegates that represented the 50 counties of the future state of West Virginia voted 32 to 13 against secession, with 4 delegates absent or abstaining.

With the beginning of the war in western Virginia on May 26, however, most of the delegates returned to Richmond and signed the ordinance, 29 of the 49 delegates signed. A public vote to confirm the ordinance was held on May 23, Curry estimated the vote for West Virginia was approximately 34, against it and 19, in favor. The successive defeats of Confederate forces under the commands of Col.

Virginia at War, 1863

Robert Garnett and Robert E. Lee enabled the establishment of a Unionist government in Wheeling , one of Virginia's largest cities. Known as the Restored Government of Virginia , it was officially recognized by the Lincoln administration. Pierpont was selected as governor of Virginia and a rump legislature was composed of former members of the Virginia Assembly who supported the Union.

Many western members of the assembly however assumed their offices in Richmond, which reflected the deep divisions among the western counties. Military organizations for both the Union and Confederate governments began in May and June , with Gov. Letcher ordering the muster of county militias and Pierpont doing the same for the Union. Many counties that had voted heavily against the secession ordinance nevertheless gave large numbers of men to the Confederate army.

The 1st and 2nd West Virginia Infantry and the 1st and 2nd West Virginia Cavalry were primarily composed of men from those states. Confederate enlistments began for the 8th Virginia Cavalry , 31st Virginia Infantry , 25th Virginia Infantry , and several regiments in the Stonewall Brigade.

West Virginia provided about 20, soldiers each to the Union and the Confederacy. An ordinance for separate statehood from Virginia was passed by the Pierpont government for a public vote on October 24, Turnout was low, with 18, voters approving.

The census recorded 79, men of voting age in the 50 counties, and turnout was low for all of the Wheeling initiatives. Virginia's Confederate government fielded about , troops in the American Civil War. They came from all economic and social levels, including some Unionists and former Unionists.

However, at least 30, of these men were actually from other states.