The disruption of Virginia

Front matter

i^V

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • D.'aXAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO

Preface

This book was written on the assumption that the admission of a new state into the Union is always a matter of some historical importance, and that the facts of such admission should be made available for the reader of history.

In the case of West Virginia prejudice and partisanship have tended to obscure the exact truth, and "The Disruption of Virginia" is an attempt to present an unbiased account of the strange course of events in the history of Virginia from the time of Lincoln's election to the Presidency to the month of June, 1863, when West Virginia was formally admitted into the Union.

The author has no grudges to satisfy and no patron to please. If he seems harsh in his opinions and conclusions regarding the irregular and inexpedient methods employed in cutting off the western counties of Virginia and forming them into a new state it is due to the conviction that an unnecessary wrong was committed, a wrong that helped not at all in Lincoln's prosecution of the Civil War. He is convinced that not only was the act unconstitutional, but that it was not desired by more than a small minority of the people of the new state. The President and Congress

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VUl PREFACE

were grateful to the Union men in north-western Virginia for their efforts to keep their section out of the Southern Confederacy, and as a reward consented to their organizing a new state, the United States Constitution to the contrary notwithstanding.

It is true that sectionalism had prevailed in Virginia for many years, and that the most widely separated parts were entirely out of sympathy with each other. Possibly the end has justified the means and Virginia as a whole is happier divided than united. With that the author has no concern. He is only interested in presenting the facts as he has found them.

The chapters dealing with the Richmond Convention, the anti-war sentiment in western Virginia, and the Wheeling Conventions were presented to the authorities of the University of Pennsylvania in 1913 as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Acting upon the advice of Prof. John Bach McMaster the author wrote the chapters on early sectional difficulties in Virginia and searched further for new material. In the Department of Archives and History of the state of West Virginia, at Charleston, were discovered a number of letters touching upon the situation in the western counties in 1861-3; and, what was of greater importance, the original manuscript of the first constitutional convention of the state was found.

All this new material was confirmatory, and satisfied the author that his original conclusions were correct. On almost the last day of the constitutional

PEEFACE IX

convention of November, 1861, according to the manuscript, a motion was made that the records of the convention be printed. One of the delegates opposed this motion for the reason that the discussion had revealed so plainly the opposition of the people of West Virginia both to the North and to the new state that the publication of the debates might interfere with the admission of the state. His opinion prevailed and to this day the record remains unprinted, although its importance is unquestioned.

Prof. McMaster and Dean Herman V. Ames of the University of Pennsylvania have read the manuscript and made some helpful suggestions. The author takes this occasion of thanking them for the interest they have shown. For any errors that may appear and the opinions expressed he must take the full responsibility.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

"Sectionalism in Virginia," by Chas. H. Ambler (Chicago, 1910) covers the period from 1776 to 1861, and treats in some detail the subject matter included in the first six chapters of "The Disruption of Virginia."

"The Rending of Virginia," by Granville D. Hall (Glencoe, Illinois, 1902) is a rambling account of the secession of Virginia and the formation of West Virginia. The author was a participant in the Wheeling Conventions and harbored a bitter resentment toward the eastern Virginians. Hence his book is not merely worthless as history — it is misleading and harmful.

The secondary works mentioned above are the only ones of any importance quoted in "The Disruption of Virginia."

The source material comes principally from newspapers, state records, and private letters, found in the Historical Library at Richmond, Virginia; the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. ; the State Library, Charleston, W. Va. ; and the Public Libraries of Wheeling, W. Va., Pittsburgh, Pa., and Philadelphia, Pa.

Mrs. Letty Carlile Strader, daughter of John S.

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^" BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Carlile, permitted the author to use her father's private correspondence.

Other information was gathered from persons who remember the state of affairs in their communities during the early part of the Civil War.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I Geographical Features 1

II Population 7

CHAPTER 1 GEOGRAPHICAIi FEATURES

When nature erected a mountain barrier between eastern and western Virginia there was laid the foundation of an intra-state dispute which ended only when the two antagonistic sections were under the authority of different state governments. It is but slight exaggeration to affirm that the Alleghany Mountains were responsible for all the quarrels between the cismontane and the transmontane sections of Virginia. Writers who stress racial differences as the cause of the difficulties which arose between the Virginians forget that almost every state in the Union was compelled to go through a process of race harmonization, and in every case intimate contact brought about race amalgamation. It was this lack of personal contact which prevented a good understanding between the English inhabitants of eastern Virginia and the German, Scotch- Irish, and English inhabitants of western Virginia. At any time previous to the Civil War a good system of canals and railroads would have gone far toward bringing the two parts of the Old Dominion more closely together; but the Richmond Junto was blind to the importance of such improvements and the contest of 1861 dawned with eastern and western Virginia as widely apart in manners, customs, and sympathies as though thousands of miles intervened between them.

A survey of the chief geographical features of Virginia reveals the fact that the surface of the state is divided into two unequally inclined planes and a centrally located valley.^ Further subdivisions marked out by earlier historians were as follows: The eastern plane naturally fell into two parts, the Piedmont and the Tidewater division, the western plane into the Alleghany highlands, the Cumberland plateau, and the Ohio Valley section. The valley lying between the two mountain ranges which run parallel across the northern part of the present state of Virginia is the famous Shenandoah Valley. While the actual boundaries of these divisions are of course purely arbitrary, yet we may easily comprehend what is meant when we hear the terms Tidewater, Piedmont, Valley, Transmontane, etc. The Fredericksburg, Richmond and Petersburg Railroad may be said to divide, roughly, the Tidewater from the Piedmont. The latter lies in a right angle, with the fall-line of the Atlantic rivers — the James, the Potomac, and the Roanoke — as its perpendicular, and the Blue Ridge as its hypothenuse.^ The Valley has a length of approximately three hun-

* Ambler, "Sectionalism in Virginia," p. 1. 'Ibid.

GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES 3

dred miles and an average width of from twenty-five to thirty miles. It forms a part of the Appalachian Valley system and opens up in but two places, namely, at the head waters of the James River to the east and at the head waters of the Kanawha River to the southwest. A more detailed description would place a middle section between the Tidewater and the Piedmont, another subdivision between the Piedmont and the Valley, and on the extreme western border an Appalachian section including counties which are geographically distinct from the Valley counties.^ The areas of these various subdivisions may be approximated somewhat as follows: Tidewater, 11,350 square miles; Piedmont, 12,470 square miles; Blue Ridge, 1,230 square miles; Valley, 13,550 square miles ; Appalachian, 5,720 square miles.

The surface of West Virginia presents many difficulties for the topographer. Scarcely any scheme of division could be created which he would be willing to accept as accurate. The general slope is from the Alleghanies to the Ohio River, but exceptions must be noted even here, for north of the Little Kanawha no considerable stream flows into the Ohio. South of a line drawn from Pocahontas County to Tyler County all the rivers flow into the Ohio. North of this line the waterfall is away from the Ohio toward the Monongahela and the Potomac rivers. The usual classification of W^est Virginia into the Alleghany Highlands, the Cumberland Plateau, and the Ohio Valley region is

* Alleghany, Bath, and Highland.

unsatisfactory for purposes of accuracy, but will perhaps serve the purpose of the historian.

A grouping of counties according to similarity of natural features would require almost as many divisions as there are counties. Scarcely any two contiguous counties present the same surface peculiarities, and in a number of instances adjoining counties are walled off by mountain spurs which form complete barriers. Speaking roughly, the Eastern Panhandle counties may be said to belong, geographically, to the great Valley of Virginia and form a natural division. Shut off from the remainder of the state by the Alleghany Mountains, the people of this region are turned toward Virginia and Maryland. This area is a little more than 3,700 square miles and includes a district scarcely surpassed for fertility of soil and natural resources. The rivers empty into the Potomac and consequently the commerce of this district is carried on with the cities of Baltimore and Washington.

To the southwest is a group of mountain counties, including Preston, Tucker, Randolph, Greenbrier, Monroe, and parts of Hardy and Pendleton. Beyond the fact that these counties lie near together and are in the same general mountain division, they have few features in common. Turning toward the north and west, we have at the extreme limit of the state that strange projection known as the Northern Panhandle. Belonging naturally to Pennsylvania, it is the sole remnant of that portion of Pennsylvania which Virginia has claimed from early times. The counties included

GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES 5

in it, Hancock, Brooke, Ohio, and Marshall, present a uniformity of geographical features. All border on the Ohio River, communication among them is easy and natural, and as a result there has been developed a similarity of social and political life unequaled by any other portion of the state. South of the Panhandle are Wetzel, Tyler, Pleasants, Wood, and Jackson counties, possessing enough features in common to be classed as a group. All have frontage on the Ohio River and the surface of each county is rough and uneven. South, to the interior, we come to a group of counties in the Kanawha Valley, comprising all or parts of Mercer, Monroe, Greenbrier, Raleigh, Fayette, Kanawha, Putnam, and Mason. A glance at the map will reveal the fact that their chief and almost only feature in common is the Great Kanawha River, which, rising in Ashe County, North Carolina, drains an area of 10,000 square miles before it finally empties its waters into the Ohio. Every possible variety of surface is presented in this region, which is the despair of the topographer. To the south of the Kanawha Valley there is a group of counties, Boone, Cabell, Wayne, Logan, Wyoming, and McDowell. These stretch along the southern part of the state from the Ohio River to the border of Virginia and include some of the wildest and most isolated spots to be found anywhere in the United States. The Monongahela River and its tributaries enclose an important group of counties. Less rugged and more accessible than the counties of the south and east, this district was settled very early and plays a part in the stirring drama of 1861-63 only a little less important than that of the Northern Panhandle counties. MonongaHa, Marion, Taylor, Barbour, Harrison, Lewis, Doddridge, Ritchie, Wirt, Calhoun, Gilmer, Roane, Braxton, Upshur, Webster, Nicholas, and Clay, the counties in this group, are drained wholly or in part by the Monongahela river system.

If it be time, as Washington once said, that people's faces are naturally turned in the direction of the flow of their rivers, then we may comprehend why misunderstandings were constantly arising, not only between the eastern and western Virginians but also between the inhabitants of the smaller subdivisions of the old state. East of the Blue Ridge the people follow their rivers to the east or the south; the western Virginians reached out to the north or to the southwest. The j commercial interests of the two great parts of Virginia I were so dissimilar that when the war broke out in 1861 ! it was found that the two sections of Virginia had little commercial dependence upon each other. The division of the state in 1863 is of little importance to any one but the historian.

Chapter II

A DETAILED accouiit of the movements of population in Virginia would carry us far beyond our province, so it will be sufficient to remind the reader that the English settlers made their way up the Atlantic rivers and gradually extended their frontiers until they had reached the base of the Alleghany Mountains. This had taken place long before the Revolutionary War. The population of Virginia at this time, while more or less homogeneous, was divided into distinct classes of society, the pioneers of the western section being regarded as peasantry by the Tidewater patricians. Before the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, the inhabitants of the Piedmont district had developed a civilization very much like that of the earlier settled portions of the state. On all questions affecting their social and political life, the people of the Tidewater and the Piedmont were one. Not so the dwellers in the Shenandoah Valley. Separated from the rest of the colony by the Blue Ridge, they developed a social and economic life which differed considerably from that which prevailed on the other side of the mountains. An influx of Germans and Scotch-Irish, beginning in 1720, was responsible in part for this variation in customs and manners. Each race had its own little settlements scattered through the numerous valleys, and there was scarcely any communication between these settlements. So rarely did these people come into contact with the outside world and so rapidly did the Germans enter the Valley that it became necessary to translate the laws into the German language. It is easy, however, to overestimate the proportion o£ alien settlers in this district. Certain it is that a majority of the Valley inhabitants came up from the older parts of the state along the Potomac River.

The fact that the German settlers Anglicized their names soon after landing in Virginia has made it impossible to do more than guess at the proportion of the population which they constituted. On the files of the Revolutionary War records few German names appear, which may show either that these immigrants were averse to fighting or that they preferred changing their names into good English ones. When Washington came to Winchester in 1747 as a young surveyor in the employ of Lord Fairfax the fact is recorded that there were great numbers of settlers — Germans, Scotch, Irish, and English, with a sprinkling of French Protestants — already preparing homes in the Valley.^

For fifty years the Valley grew, almost unnoticed by

the older sections of the state. Its inhabitants turned

their faces longingly to the west, but previous to the

Revolution all progress in that direction was checked

*Dandridge, "Historic Shepherdstown," p. 22, by the Proclamation of 1763, which the officials of Virginia, both clerical and secular, enforced with much zeal. In the light of later events it is just as well that migration to the west from the Valley was not permitted at this time, for if the Valley settlers had scattered themselves through the wilds of western Virginia they would have rendered far less service to their country in the Revolutionary War.

It is impossible to trace with any degree of accuracy the movements of population in western Virginia. We know that the first white settlers made their abodes in the Eastern Panhandle probably about 1726, and that they were mainly Scotch, Welsh, and German.^ This movement along the Potomac and its tributaries was an easy and natural transition and so agreeably were these pioneers impressed with their surroundings that they were contented to remain in the Valley, and thus did not penetrate beyond the mountains into the wilderness for many years. Thus up to the middle of the eighteenth century no white settlers, so far as we are aware, were to be found in the present boundaries of West Virginia. Between 1750 and 1800 small isolated settlements began to dot the borders of the state ; but the names of these settlers and their exact location form a matter yet to be determined by research. Emigration from the north to West Virginia was through Pennsylvania down the Ohio River or up the Monongahela and its tributaries. The movement was gradual

* Third Biennial Report of State Department of Archives and History — West Virginia, 1911, p. 15.

and the settlements so scattered that as late as 1787 Jefferson's map of Virginia shows only two towjis, Wheeling and Parkersburg, in the northern part of western Virginia. After the Revolution the northern Panhandle grew rapidly and with the opening of the Mississippi River began to rival commercially the older settlements of the east.

South of the Little Kanawha the people came mainly from Virginia and Maryland. By 1755 pioneers had pushed into the valley of the Greenbrier and spread out into all parts of the Great Kanawha Valley. The entire district west of the Blue Ridge was organized as Augusta County and the portion lying west of Hampshire County was commonly known as West Augusta. In 1769 Botetourt County was carved from the southern portion of Augusta, extending from the Blue Ridge to the Ohio River and separated from the older division by a line drawn along the 55th degree west longitude crossing Greenbrier County at the southern terminus of the Marlin Mountains and reaching across to Belleville.^ Fincastle County was organized in 1772 and included all the present state of West Virginia lying between the Great Kanawha and the Big Sandy rivers. In 1776 West Augusta was divided into Ohio, Monongalia, and Yohogania counties, the latter disappearing when the extension of the Mason and Dixon line cut off all but a small portion from Virginia. The same year saw Fincastle County trisected into Kentucky, Washington, and Montgomery ^ Report quoted on p. 9.

counties; and in 1777 Greenbrier County was constructed out of the western part of Botetourt County. At the outbreak of the Revolution it was estimated that there were 30,000 white people within the boundaries of what is now West Virginia.^ In 1790 the first census disclosed a population of approximately 59,000 people in the nine counties lying wholly or in part in West Virginia. The increase of population from 1800 to the Civil War was marvelously rapid and every year found the western counties growing both in size and importance.^ The census of 1860 gave Virginia a -^^'

population of 1,596,318, which made it the fifth state fffi^ in the Union. The native born of the people numbered // 5" pC 97.81 per cent, and of the foreign born, approximately |^ "^ 13 per cent were English, 47 per cent Irish, 30 per cent | | ^ German. Statistics showed that 399,700 Virginians 1\^ ^ had migrated to other states. Emigrants from other \%^ parts of the United States into Virginia numbered -^ 68,341, half of whom were from three states, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Maryland.

Within the bounds of the present state of West Virginia there were approximately 323,526 white persons and 28,256 slaves. In eastern Virginia the slave population numbered 490,865. A comparison of the ratios shows that in the newer sections of the state west of the Alleghanies free persons outnumbered the slaves

^ Report quoted on page 9.

^This is shown by the following figures: 1800, 78,593 population in thirteen counties; 1810, 105,469 in sixteen counties; 1820, 136,768 in twenty-two counties; 1830, 176,924 in twenty-five counties; 1840, 224,537 in twenty-eight counties; 1850, 302,310 in forty counties.

by more than ten to one, while east of the mountains the slaves constituted nearly one third of the entire population.^ Figures showing the distribution of the slave population in western Virginia in 1860 serve as a clue in determining the division of sentiment that existed when the question of slavery was under discussion. The northern Panhandle with a total population of 45,358 contained but 149 slaves. The close proximity of this section to Ohio and Pennsylvania made it difficult for the people to keep slaves if the latter desired to escape. Furthermore, the large foreign-born population residing here were almost without exception opposed to the institution of slavery. In Ohio County at the outbreak of the Civil War there were 5,511 persons of foreign birth, principally Irish and German, thus constituting one seventh of the entire foreign-born population of the state. In contrast with this we have in the eastern Panhandle a population almost entirely native-born, a people who for generations had been accustomed to regard slavery with tolerance if not always with entire approval. Thus on the great question of the day the people of the two Panhandle districts of western Virginia were as widely apart as the poles. Morgan, Jefferson, Berkeley, Hardy, and Hampshire counties, with a white population nearly equal to that of the northern Panhandle counties, contained 7,990 slaves or nearly one third of the entire

* In 1860, 58,043 free colored persons were to be found in the state of Virginia. Of these but 2,709 lived in western Virginia. A strong antipathy appears to have existed in the latter section for free negroes.

J slave population of the western section. In only two other counties were there more than 1,000 slaves, Greenbrier with 1,525 and Monroe with 1,114. In the twelve counties bordering on the Ohio River there were but 1,247 slaves, while in the six counties drained by the Great Kanawha River the slave population numbered 3,047. Turning to the north, we find that the counties in the Monongahela Valley held 1,336 slaves; of these eight counties Harrison contained almost as many negroes as the other seven counties combined.

The truth now becomes apparent that slaves in western Virginia were of little economic importance, while in the eastern part of the state they were almost the sine qua non of the prosperity of the planters of that I section.^ In 1870 Virginia produced 37,086,364 ( pounds of tobacco with the value of $7,154,770. West I Virginia the same year raised 2,046,452 pounds of I tobacco valued at $457,573. In the production of wool ! West Virginia was in the lead, with a total of 1,593,541 pounds to 877,110 pounds.^ Negroes are peculiarly fitted for the cultivation of tobacco, a plant which rej quires the attention of many hands. In the raising of I sheep a large area is needed, but comparatively few I laborers. Hence the relative uselessness of the negro I slave in those counties where the soil was not fitted for

I *In the decade between 1850-60 the increase of population by < sections is shown as follows:

Tidewater Piedmont Valley Trans- Alleghany

-De Bow's Review, 1860, Vol. 28, p. 354. ■United States Census Reports, 1870.

the production of tobacco. In Virginia, with almost no exception, the counties producing the largest amount of tobacco contained the greatest number of slaves. In western Virginia we discover an apparently anomalous situation. Here the counties containing the greatest number of slaves raised little or no tobacco, while other counties with few slaves produced great quantities of the plant. Thus of the largest slaveholding counties Berkeley raised no tobacco, Greenbrier, 3,000 pounds annually, Hampshire, 53 pounds, and Jefferson, 6,700 pounds. Monroe with 1,114 slaves raised in one year 123,221 pounds, but slavery was evidently of less importance than we might think, for a decade later when the institution of slavery had been abolished the census reports show that Monroe produced almost identically the same amount of tobacco as in 1860. The largest tobacco-raising counties of West Virginia were, in I860, Jackson, Fayette, Kanawha, Mercer, Monroe, and Putnam. In the first named there were but 55 slaves; in the second, 271 slaves ; in the third, 629 slaves ; in the fourth, 362 slaves; in the fifth, 1,114, and in the last, with a production of 472,765 pounds of tobacco, there were only 580 slaves. The irresistible conclusion is that in the counties west of the Alleghany Mountains the ordinary dependence of tobacco-raisers upon slaves did not exist; comparatively few persons were seriously affected when slavery was abolished and the strong defense of the institution was principally founded on sentimental reasons. In the first five years after the Civil War Virginia's output of tobacco was less than one third of what it had been in 1860, while during the same period the production of tobacco in West Virginia increased by one third. No better proof could be desired that slavery played but little part in the economic life of the Western Virginians.

Chapter III

The divergence of interest between the two sections is further illustrated by a comparison of the manufacture of iron, West Virginia's tonnage being nearly three times as great as that of Virginia. The eastern section of the state was comparatively poor in natural resources, while the western counties were underlain with great quantities of iron, coal, oil, and other products which lie beneath the surface of the earth.

Church statistics reveal the fact that out of a total of one hundred and eighty-eight Episcopal churches in the state of Virginia one hundred and seventy-two were to be found in the eastern section ; fifty-six out of seventy-three Disciples churches were in the same part of the state ; sixteen out of seventeen Quaker churches ; ten of the twelve German Reformed congregations ; two of the three Jewish churches ; fifty-eight out of sixty-nine Lutheran churches ; nine hundred and sixty-two out of fourteen hundred and three Methodist churches; one hundred and ninety-seven out of two hundred and ninety Presbyterian congregations; and fourteen of the thirty-three Catholic churches were in

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DIYERGENCEES 17

the east.^ The significant fact here is that the Established Church of Virginia maintained its traditional aloofness and made no efforts to establish new parishes in the western counties. In the latter section such churches as did exist were mainly evangelical. The attitude of the western inhabitants of Virginia toward the Episcopal Church was not altogether unlike that of the Scotch Covenanters towards the members of the Established Church of England. Religiously, socially, and economically the people of West Virginia differed as widely from their eastern brethren as to-day the mountaineer of the isolated sections of Kentucky or Tennessee differs from the dweller in Louisville or Memphis.

"Commerce is the grand lever which sets in operation and controls all important political movements." The truth of this is too well established to require exemplification. We might go a little further and say that absence of commercial relations is the grand lever which sets in motion many political misunderstandings. That this was the case in Virginia is beyond dispute, and a little inquiry into the subject reveals a situati9n unique in the history of the various commonwealths of the United States. We see a state containing 67,000 square miles of territory, divided into unequal parts by high mountain ranges. Commerce on the eastern side follows its natural course and is diverted toward the Atlantic Ocean. In the western region, following the

* All figures and estimates given above were taken from the United States Census Reports of 1860 and 1870.

natural law, commercial communications are carried on almost wholly with the cities and towns of the section of the United States drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries. In this age Nature's commands are frequently disregarded by ingenious man ; and railroads, canals, and steamships have not only annihilated distance, but have afforded easy means of communication between regions separated by natural barriers. Not so in Virginia. Blind to the certain consequences of continued sectional strife, having as its great cause lack of personal contact between the people of the two sections, the Old Dominion made little effort to bring together the mountain-severed peoples.

It is not to be understood that there were entirely lacking wise men who endeavored to bridge the gap, for, as we shall see, the number of schemes having this object in view is evidence that the danger was foreseen in some quarters. A note of alarm was sounded officially in 1857. After complaining that the products of western Virginia were sent to Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Louisiana the writer declares as follows : "Thus, by every geographical and geological cause were our people segregated into separate communities and divided from each other and all mutual commercial dependency." Lack of harmony, we are told, resulted in schemes of internal improvements which were dictated by sectional feeling.^ The writer in the role of apologist is not altogether successful; his evident purpose

* Address of Governor Henry A. Wise. De Bow's Review, 1857, Vol. 23, pp. 58-70.

was to excuse or at least to palliate the evident selfishness and short-sightedness of the people of his section who had long controlled legislative affairs in Virginia. He describes correctly the difficulties which would present themselves to the railroad engineer who endeavored to pierce the mountain ranges. To bring the Ohio River region into connection with the cismontane it was necessary to "pass over or through a backbone of from one to two hundred miles of mountains running in parallel ridges north, east, and southwest across her entire limit. Tunnel after tunnel at short intervals arrest her progress and make each work one of patient labor and of time. She has to overcome a summit level of nearly 2,000 feet for a breadth from east to west; which no other people on the continent, any more than Virginians, have as yet overcome." ^