Rogue State by Richard H. Owens Read Free Book Online Page A

large number of local Confederate sympathizers.
    Again, military circumstances helped dictate political actions. In the end, fifty counties were selected. All of present-day West Virginia’s counties except Mineral, Grant, Lincoln, Summers, and Mingo, which were formed after statehood, became part of the new Union’s new rogue state.
    Most of the eastern and southern counties west of the Blue Ridge that were included in the new state of West Virginia did not support separate statehood. They were included by the Wheeling delegates for political, economic, and military purposes. The wishes of the citizens of those counties were largely disregarded. But the areas were under federal military influence or lacked C.S.A. military pressure.
    The Blue Ridge mountain range became a geographically and historically logical eastern border for West Virginia. Counties west of that line [ironically almost identical to the 1763 Proclamation Line] were conveniently included. In addition to an historical and symbolic division between eastern and western Virginia, the line of the Blue Ridge also provided a defense against potential [albeit unlikely] Confederate invasion. That line also corresponded to the line of United States military influence and control, or the lack of Confederate military influence or interest.
    One of the most controversial decisions in creating West Virginia as a separate state involved the Eastern Panhandle counties. Those were the counties located along the Virginia-Maryland border and the Potomac River. They centered on the cities of Martinsburg, Charles Town, and Harper’s Ferry. They were largely east of the Blue Ridge, more appropriately part of the Shenandoah Valley region then “western” Virginia. 58
    Those areas, like the rest of the lower [northern] Shenandoah Valley, supported the Confederacy [although there was a fair amount of Union support in the area around Winchester and Frederick County early in the war, in contrast to the lower, or southern, Shenandoah Valley]. But those eastern counties were strategically located and economically important. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, running through the Eastern Panhandle, was vital for the region’s economy, Union communications with the Midwest, federal troop movement, and the future of a s eparate state of West Virginia. Inclusion of those three eastern counties in the new state of West Virginia nominally removed the railroad and those counties from Virginia’s jurisdiction and Confederate control. It also enhanced West Virginia’s economic future.
    Subsequent to withdrawal of Virginia’s military forces from the western regions after the Battle of Philippi and later decisions not to contest an area of questionable military value to the Confederacy, formal military hostilities in the western counties of Virginia were minimal for the rest of the Civil W ar. However, there were brutal guerilla activities. Much of those focused on local issues and old regional and clan hostilities rather than the larger military issues of the Civil War. Again, there were far fewer pro-Union or emancipationist interests in those areas than local, economic, traditional, and clan issues at stake in the western counties in the 1860’s.
    After 1861, federal troops were stationed in critical areas throughout West Virginia, a.k.a. the areas of Virginia west of the Blue Ridge, largely to secure rail lines and other important features. They also provided a semblance of [not complete] military stability for the separatist movement based in Wheeling. During the Civil War, however, the “Reorganized Government of Virginia” never effectively controlled more than twenty or twenty-five counties in the region that became West Virginia.
    Even where Union troops were present, maintaining law and order was inconsistent and precarious. Guerilla warfare was commonplace and violent. But there was no more major fighting between Union and Confederate