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West Virginia is the
only state formed because of the Civil War. Just as North battled South
in the country, West confronted East in Virginia. The two regions formed
a single state in name, but not in geography, economy, climate, descent
of its residents or way of life.
Faced with what they considered an overbearing and neglectful state
government, and after years of simmering resentment toward their eastern
neighbors, citizens in the mountainous western regions of Virginia
refused to take part in secession, “the crowning act of infamy,”
thundered one politician from that part of the state. They stood up for
the Union and declared themselves independent.
Did you know all that?
Neither did I, and I grew up there.
Oh, I knew the basic facts, taught in my state history class in eighth
grade. What didn’t register was the revolutionary spirit it took to
separate from a state that had produced seven presidents. Or the
questionable legality of West
Virginia’s origins. Or the handwringing Virginia’s split caused
President Lincoln (“the division of a State is dreaded as a precedent”).
All these were curiously and unfortunately underplayed during my 22
years in the state sometimes referred to as “the child of the
rebellion.”
“It requires stout hearts to execute this purpose; it requires men of
courage, of unfaltering determination,” declared Arthur Boreman,
president of the convention that oversaw the formation of the new state
and also West Virginia’s first governor (and, I learned many years
later, the man after whom my freshman dorm at West Virginia
University was named). If they did not spurn the Old Dominion, “the soil upon
which we stand will be no longer the soil of the
United States,” warned another
separatist.
All this, of course, is in the history books. The problem for me, and I
would imagine for generations of
West Virginians,
was that that’s where it remained: in books, and not planted in our
malleable psyches by family members or our state history teachers.
Instead, we grappled with hillbilly stereotypes.
“I don’t think you’d find too many people who think about [our history]
much in West Virginia,” state archivist Joe Geiger said. “I don’t know
that everyone’s aware of the process that we went through.”
Hunting role models
Not only was I born in West Virginia, but I was also named for my
parents’ home county, Preston. Throughout my youth, I was eager to
discover Mountain
State success stories. (College athletes, those four-year mercenaries from
Florida or New Jersey who
slipped on WVU uniforms, didn’t count. I was looking for true natives.)
I scanned the backs of baseball cards for West Virginia birthplaces
(Chicago Cubs catcher Steve Swisher is from Parkersburg!) and was
pleased to find out that “Hollywood Squares” host Peter Marshall hailed
from Huntington. Such things should not have mattered all that much, but
they did. Imagine my deep disappointment when I discovered that one of
my favorite bands at the time, AC/DC, was not screeching “West Virginia
brandy” in the tune “Have a Drink On Me” but “whiskey, gin and brandy.”
That was a downer.
Now, with the Civil War sesquicentennial ramping up, I realize that I
shouldn’t have needed to work so hard to justify being proud of my home
state.
The audacious, some would say illegal, manner in which West Virginia
went its own way was not emphasized during my upbringing. It should have
been then, and it should be now. For one thing, it’s a way to immunize
the state’s young citizens against the unflattering West Virginia
stereotypes awaiting them, particularly if they move away.
Since the 35th state was formed, we’ve largely let outsiders, folks who
don’t know Charleston from Charles Town, define us. Their rube jokes and
unrelenting focus on the state’s most impoverished and uneducated has
somehow trumped its knee-buckling beauty, neighborly people and singular
history.
Non-natives have no particular reason to know the state’s origin, but
those within her borders should.
“The roots of that period are basically indistinguishable for most West
Virginians, and that’s sad,” said Dennis Frye, chief historian at
Harpers Ferry National State Park, site of abolitionist John Brown’s raid on a
U.S. arsenal, a precursor to the start
of the Civil War. “They were a state born of conviction. They were a
state born for advocating for and defending the United States of America
rather than the seceded states of America. Western Virginians were very
committed to the Union in a state that left the Union.
“When secession occurred, Western Virginians felt that
they were being told that this is what you’ve got to do, and they
rebelled against that. That’s another part of West Virginia’s soul . . .
that there is a rebellious nature to them and they exhibited that very,
very much with respect to the Civil War. It’s really fascinating how
they were willing to declare their own declaration of independence.”
Secession rumblings began long before the Civil War. Rugged Western
Virginia was settled largely by Germans and Scotch-Irish. The mountains
both isolated them and made them independent. Their communities differed
sharply from the more refined eastern part of the state, with its
population mostly of English descent.
In the state capital of Richmond, the slave-dependent plantation owners
of the eastern territory had far more clout than the small farmers in
the mountains. Discord mounted over slavery, voting requirements,
allocation of funds and taxation, not to mention respect. A symbolic
difference: About 80 percent of West Virginia’s streams flow west to the
Mississippi River, not east to the Chesapeake Bay as in Virginia.
“The East has always looked upon that portion of the State west of the
mountains, as a sort of outside appendage,” Boreman would later say in
his inauguration address as governor. “The unfairness and inequality of
legislation is manifest on every page of the statute book.”
As historian Frye says today, “The Civil War was not the cause of the
formation of West Virginia. It was the opportunity. They looked at that
as a way to get away from what they thought were the shackles of the
rest of the state and the monopoly and attitude of Richmond.”
After Virginia voted to secede from the Union, Western Virginia delegates,
two-thirds of whom had voted against secession, gathered in
Clarksburg and later Wheeling and
decided to carve out their own territory and create “a new Virginia.”
“People of North Western Virginia, why should we thus permit ourselves
to be tyrannized over, and made slaves of, by the haughty arrogance and
wicked machinations of would-be Eastern Despots,” asked a committee of
Western Virginia politicians in an open letter in the Kingwood Chronicle
in May of 1861. “Are we submissionists, craven cowards, who will yield
to daring ambition....The Union under the flag of our common
country....causes our bosoms to glow with patriotic heat, and our hearts
to swell with honest love of country.”
One problem: The U.S. Constitution does not allow a new state to be
formed without the consent of the original state.
With Virginia having left the Union,
Western Virginia delegates formed a Reorganized
Government of Virginia, which was recognized by President Lincoln as the
official government of Virginia. That government granted itself
permission to form the state of West Virginia. Lincoln reluctantly
approved statehood, which became official on June 20, 1863.
“It is said the admission of West Virginia is secession, and tolerated
only because it is our secession,” stated Lincoln, whose cabinet was
split on the issue. “Well, if we can call it by that name, there is
still difference enough between secession against the Constitution, and
secession in favor of the Constitution.”
That hillbilly image
How did this rich history get buried?
The state later became known for labor strife, natural resources and
economic struggles, none of which relates to the Civil War era. And for
the waves of immigrants who settled in West Virginia in the early 1900s,
the state’s rogue origins were inconsequential. Another reason might be
divided loyalties, because Western Virginia provided troops to both the
Union and Confederate forces. (I come from Union territory, but it’s also
the birthplace of Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, a statue
of whom graces the plaza of the Harrison County Courthouse.)
During my lifetime, it has been defensiveness, not the state’s history,
that has bound West Virginians.
Put it this way: When I was a kid, a state politician named Manchin was
railing against hillbilly portrayals of West Virginians on “Love Boat”
and a CBS movie called “Angel
City.” In recent years, another state politician named Manchin was railing
against hillbilly portrayals of
West Virginians
in a casting call for a horror movie.
Dick Cheney in 2008 made an inbreeding joke to chuckling reporters at
the National Press Club (“So we had Cheneys on both sides of the family,
and we don’t even live in West Virginia”). The year before, the WVU
student paper denounced nationally syndicated radio host Jim Bohannon’s
observation that there’s nothing to do in Morgantown but “mine coal and
molest livestock.”
If outsiders want to go for the cheap, ill-informed yuk, or are unaware
the state even exists, that’s their business. I for one am hopeful that
the current West Virginia students will be more informed about their
state heritage than I was. The state’s 150th anniversary in 2013 should
spur interest, too.
“Eyes will be open to some of this positive history, and that will be
their perspective from then on,” said John Lilly, editor of Goldenseal,
a magazine that celebrates the state’s traditions.
A time to celebrate
West Virginians, particularly transplanted ones, are a wistful lot. Our
eyes turn misty even before John Denver completes the first verse in the
unofficial state anthem “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”
A joke we tell on ourselves: How many West Virginians does it take to
change a light bulb? Three. One to change the bulb, and two to sit
around and talk about how much they miss the old one.
In this case, however, a look back might just result in a step forward.
Rise up, West Virginians, and embrace the true meaning of state motto
“Mountaineers Are Always Free.” Celebrate that rebellious birth.
Not just for the sesquicentennial, but forevermore.
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