U.S. Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ -- USGenNet Inc. -- Please read the U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statementon the following page: ----------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER XXII. THE SECESSION FROM VIRGINIA Prior to the Civil War interest in politics in Lewis County was confined almost exclusively to questions of State and National concern. The campaigns of candi- dates for county offices attracted little attention even after the adoption of the constitution of 1852 had added important offices to the elective list. There was much in- terest, however, concerning such questions as the tariff, the United States bank, internal improvements, the ex- tension of slavery into the western territories, and most important of all, the agitation for the extension of man- hood suffrage, a white basis of representation for the sen- atorial and delegate districts, and equalization of taxa- tion so as to make the burdens of supporting the govern- ment fall upon the planters of the east to the same extent as upon the poor farmers of the western part of the state. It was generally felt in the west that the eastern slaveholders had far too much influence in the councils of the state. Each of them had a vote wherever he owned a plot of ground, but the small farmer of the west had no vote unless he owned a considerable plot of ground. Though manhood suffrage was granted by the constitution of 1852, there still remained the old basis of representation in which the slave population was counted A few plantation owners sent as many repre- sentatives to the General Assembly as several thousand western farmers. The powerful eastern magnates were exempted from paying their full proportion of taxes. Their slaves under twelve years of age were not assessed for taxes at all, and slaves over that age were assessed at only $300, though many of them sold in the open mar- ket at $1200. On the other hand every pig, every calf, every chicken, every hunting rifle, in short every bit of property owned by the small farmer was assessed at its full value. Some relief from the system had been gained in 1830 and in 1852; but the burdens of the Virginia gov- ernment were still indefensible, and the successes of the westerners in the earlier conventions only whetted their desire for more reforms. The key to the dissatisfaction of the people of the west was the institution of slavery, which had received special treatment by the state to the detriment of almost all the other interests of the people. Slavery never ex- isted in the county to any great extent. It could not ex- ist here because the rugged nature of the surface and the difficulties of transportation made great plantations im- possible. Very few of the citizens of the county owned slaves. Jacob Lorentz owned the largest number. Al- exander Scott Withers owned more than anyone else in Weston, yet he never held more than a dozen at any one time. Minter Bailey at one time owned ten, Weeden Hoffman seven, and a few other citizens a lesser num- ber. The slaves were used to work the fields in the vi- cinity of Weston, often under the direct supervision of their masters. All the slaves were well treated. There was a feeling of affection between the families of the mas- ters and their servants which precluded cruelty before the emancipation of the slaves, and which continued long after the bonds were broken Negroes were never reared in the county for the purpose of selling them in the southern market. There was none of the cruelty which existed on the great plantations of the South. The peo- ple, being used to a paternalistic sort of slavery, thought the abolitionists of the North meddlers and worse. Objection to slavery rested on economic and politi- cal grounds. In the Virginia legislature of 1831 the del- egate from Lewis voted in favor of a resolution declaring it expedient to legislate to abolish the institution of negro slavery in the state. The people continued to be- lieve that they would be better off without slavery, and agitation for emancipation continued until the growth of abolitionist agitation in the North compelled the peo- ple of Virginia to stand together in defense of their pe- culiar institution. Among the New Englanders who had come to French creek in 1810 and had since maintained a con- nection with the thought of New England, there was a decided aversion to slavery. When the Republican party was formed in 1856 many of the people there allied them- selves with it. At the election that fall, nine citizens of the community dared to vote their sentiments. The act caused much excitement and universal disapprobation among their neighbors. The names of the voters were known, for the voting was done under the old viva voce system. They were held up to public scorn. The Wes- ton Herald, 1 December 1856, commented on the occur- rence in part as follows: "Such flagrant anti-slavery action here in Virginia was unexpected. * * * That they should come out thus boldly and avow their ad- herence to principles and men so odious to public senti- ment, and so inimical to our interests is a matter of as- tonishment and exhibits a social and political depravity which must arouse the indignation of our people and visit them with the burning rebuke of public sentiment. * * * The fact of their being citizens of our state by birth is no palliation." Lynch law is more than hinted at in the course of the editorial, which continues at length in the same tone, and at the end gives the names of the electors so that all citizens of the vicinity might know and recognize the arch traitors to the domestic happiness of the state. The editorial brought forth a reply from the pen of the Rev. Amos Brooks, one of the "nine immortals." He pointed out the fact that the Republican platform op- posed only the extension of slavery into the territories and did not attempt to interfere with the institution in any of the states where it existed. He made an appeal to the people for freedom of speech, of the press and of the ballot box, and said if these were denied, democratic in- stitutions in Virginia were at an end. If the editors would not publish the contribution, he asked that the}'- take it out and read it two or three times a week, and also read it to the officers of the bank, who were known to be strongly in favor of slavery. It is hardly necessary to state that the reply was never published by the Herald. The tense state of public feeling in Lewis County was increased a thousand fold by the sudden news of the attack on Harper's Ferry by John Brown. If one irresponsible abolitionist could come to a Virginia town and incite the slaves to rise against their masters, why could not another of the same character come to Weston or any other town in northwestern Virginia? Who knew but that there might be a slave insurrection the next time with all the horrors which usually attend ser- vile wars? Every colored man in the county was closely watched to see that there were no secret meetings, and that no designing white man was trying to gain influence over them. Interest in the approaching presidential election of 1860 became intense. The final disposition of the slavery question seemed to rest on the decision of the people at that time. The times were regarded as critical. Almost everywhere except in western Virginia party ties were thrown to the winds. The peculiar outcome of the elec- tion in Lewis County is due to causes which reached back a full generation. In the beginning the people of northwestern Virginia were in favor of a strong national government, and they were generally opposed to the doctrines of Jefferson and the early democratic Republicans. They favored the building of roads and canals by the national government. In the election of 1828, Lewis County voted for Adams against Jackson, choosing the conservative rather than the radical wing of the Democratic party. In 1824, Joseph Johnson, representing the district in Congress, was the only Virginian who voted in favor of the high tariff. By the close of Jackson's administration the rug- ged western personality of that leader had won over the people of the northwest. When the Whig party was formed the majority of the people in the Kanawha val- ley joined it and the majority in the Monongahela valley remained with the Democrats. Lewis County was on the border line between the sections, sometimes being in the Monongahela and sometimes in the Kanawha con- gressional district. Strenuous efforts were made by both parties to secure control of the county. The Democrats had the advantage from the start, their majority being about 100 in a total vote of 700, The Whig strength was generally in the valleys of the Elk and the Buckhannon. After the formation of Brax- ton, and especially after the formation of Upshur, Lewis County was a Democratic stronghold on the frontier of the enemy's country. The location of Lewis County gave its leaders in the General Assembly and in the party councils an in- fluence far out of proportion to the importance of the territory they represented. Every measure concerning the west was referred to the delegates from Lewis, and they were courted by the Democratic party. They were able to secure special favors for their constituents far above those of other delegates. By crossing the river below the mouth of Stone Coal creek, the Staunton and Parkersburg turnpike would not have required bridges across Stone Coal and Polk creeks. The Lewis County delegate contrived to have inserted in the appropriation bill a clause directing that the road should pass through Weston. The location of the Weston branch of the Ex- change Bank of Virginia was doubtless fixed because of the central location of the town from a business stand- point; but the loyalty of the town to the Democratic party was also a potent factor. The designation of Wes- ton as one of three places to be visited by the commis- sioners to choose the site of the Trans-Alleghany Luna- tic Asylum may have been on account of the geograph- ical location of the town, or it may have been because certain Democratic politicians from Lewis County in- sisted upon it. Jonathan M. Bennett, one of the Demo- cratic leaders of the county, was appointed First Audi- tor of Virginia by Governor Henry A. Wise partly, doubtless, as a recognition of the Democratic organiza- tion in Lewis County. It was not surprising that the people were kindly disposed toward the Democratic party in 1860. The election was complicated by new events and new turns in the political wheel. The Whig party had been broken up. The Democrats were split into a northern and a southern branch, each with a ticket in the field. The new Republican party which had shown great strength in 1856, was believed to be sure of the electoral vole of several of the northern states. The only party which made a truly national appeal was composed of the rem- nant of the old Whigs with the addition of some who rec- ognized that the sectional division of the country was a critical state of affairs, and who hoped to throw the elec- tion into the House of Representatives where the Pres- ident could be elected by a deliberative body. Its nom- inee was John Bell, of Tennessee; its platform was pur- posely vague — "The Union, the Constitution and the en- forcement of the laws." It was only by ignoring the question of slavery that a national party could be brought into existence. The new party made a special appeal to the people of the border states who felt neither the economic neces- sities of slavery as did those of the South, nor the terri- ble nature of the institution as did the abolitionists of the North. A compromise which would delay the set- tlement of the question a little longer seemed to prom- ise to them more than bringing the question to a final settlement in the heat of sectional passion which fol- lowed the Dred Scott decision and John Brown's raid. A vigorous campaign was waged in the interests of the new party. The anti-slavery men supported Douglas, the candidate of the northern wing of the Democratic party, first, because his election seemed to promise a definite check to the further extension of slavery, and secondly, because there was a very real danger of their being lynched if they voted for Lincoln. The final returns gave Breckenridge, the candidate of the southern wing of the Democratic party, 604: Bell, 332; and Douglas, 247. Lincoln received not a single vote. The Breckenridge victory was not an ap- proval of the states' rights sentiments in the platform, not a sign of devotion to the slaveocracy, but the result of the thoroughness of the Democratic organization in Lewis County. The people voted for the Democratic party because it was the party of Jackson. Then came the startling news that Abraham Lincoln had been elected through the division of the vote among his opponents. Before the year was out South Carolina had left the Union, followed by six other southern states. Rumors of war were in the air. As one of the citizens of the county wrote, (quoted in Roy B. Cook's Pioneer History) "On every hand you heard hushed voices, al- most in whispers, discussing the oncoming horror. * '* The very air seemed full of distant mutterings of an angry, surging, restless people, divided, yet most inti- mately associated; opposite in views, but of the same family. Where once there had been friendship and love, there came bitterness beyond belief." The question in the minds of the people was, "What would Virginia do?" A convention of the state was called early in 1861 to consider the course to be taken. The action of Governor Letcher and the other offi- cials of the state added to the general fear of impend- ing war. During the winter of 1860-61 there was a great military stir throughout Virginia, and every effort was made to put the slender militia of the state on a war footing. In the midst of the flurry and excitement in the west, there came orders for the 125th and 192nd regi- ments of state militia to proceed to muster near Weston, about the middle of February, 1861. About two weeks before the day appointed for the muster, the officers of the two regiments met informally to discuss plans for the ceremony. One of the questions which came to their attention was the propriety, under the conditions then existing in the community, of carry- ing regimental flags and the Stars and Stripes when the regiments passed in review before General Conrad. The almost unanimous decision of the meeting was that such a course would lead to bloodshed, and it was therefore decided that the colors should not be carried. Michael Egan, who afterwards organized Company "B", Fifteenth West Virginia Volunteer Infantry, alone dissented from the opinion of the council of officers, his oath of al- legiance to the government of the United States being, as he said, yet too fresh in his mind to permit it to be secondary to his allegiance to any state. The majority of the people approved the action taken by the council; but Major Egan made a trip over the county, address- ing the citizens wherever he could secure an audience, urging them to stand by the flag of the United States. In this way he secured pledges from about fifty men to assist him in upholding the flag at the coming muster. Gasper Butcher, of Butcher's fork, went to Weston and procured red, white and blue cloth from which a flag was made by Misses Julia and Cecelia Flesher of Polk creek. On the day appointed the brigade formed on the farm of Henry Butcher (now the Riverside stock farm) about two miles north of Weston. Hundreds of people. the wives and mothers and sisters and sweethearts of the men in line, had gathered to witness the ceremonies. Everything bore an outward appearance of gayety; but there was an undercurrent of dark forebodings of im- pending trouble. Orderlies rode hither and thither over the field. Officers were busy finishing the final alignment of their men. Suddenly interest is centered in a new fig- lire who rides upon the field at full gallop until he ar- rives opposite the center of his regiment. There he stops and unfurls the flag of the United States to the breeze. It was Major Michael Egan. The action of the dashing Irishman was noticed by the whole assemblage. A few greeted the flag with cheers, but the majority gave vent to loud protests and angry mutterings. Major Egan handed the standard to John Newman, who had previously volunteered to carry it. At that moment Colonel Hanson M. Peterson rode up and requested that the flag be removed. Major Egan refused. He ordered Major Egan to the post of honor at the head of the column. The latter declined, prefer- ring to remain with the flag. The place at the head of the column was taken by Colonel Caleb Boggess, and the re- view proceeded with no further incident. At the close of the ceremonies a mass meeting was held at Weston, which was addressed by several of the officers, all of whom expressed strong Southern sen- timents. Colonel Peterson, who was soon to lay down his life for Virginia, appealed to all in the approaching conflict to stand by their state, pointing out the sub- ordinate position occupied by the federal government in any conflict as to the constitutional rights of states and nation. The Union men said nothing. As Michael Egan has well said, "They had scored their victory in deeds rather than in talk." Meanwhile the political leaders of the county at- tempted to stampede the people into the ranks of the se- cessionists. The Weston Herald, which had been a Constitutional Union organ during the campaign of 1860, with the motto, "Civil and religious liberty, the Consti- tution and the Union," now came out boldly under the caption, "Southern Rights and Southern Independence." Mass meetings, addressed by leading citizens, were held in all parts of the county. The convention of the people of Virginia to decide whether or not the state should remain in the Union was still in session. There were days of tense anxiety for the quiet settlements on the West Fork. The people began to reflect upon the issues at stake, and upon the probable results of a hasty decision to leave the Union, and as day after day passed with no decision, they began to take courage, and believe that after all Virginia would re- main in the Union, or at least would take a neutral stand. They were disappointed. It became increasingly evident that the national government intended to use force to bring back the seceded states, and upon the Pres- ident's first call for volunteers, the convention was stam- peded by ex-Governor Wise and other pro-slavery poli- ticians into the submission of the Ordinance of Secession to the people. Delegate Caleb Boggess, of Lewis, voted against the ordinance and escaped with some difficulty from Richmond. Tremendous confusion followed the submission of the secession ordinance. Eastern Virginia leaders seized all federal property in the state and prepared for war as if the ordinance had already been ratified by the people. In Lewis County it was reported that the house of Caleb Boggess had been burned to the ground by the seces- sionists in revenge for his vote against the ordinance. Charges of conspiracy and treason against the state were in the air, and no man whose avowed sympathies were with the Union felt quite safe. The majority of the people of the county believed 1o some extent in states' rights, but they were not in favor of dismembering the nation. Caleb Boggess had rightly represented his constituents. The attempts of the east- ern politicians to coerce the people brought to their minds all the long train of grievances they had against the east — the restrictions of suffrage in the west, the un- fairness in taxation, the denial of facilities of education, and the creation of an enormous debt for the benefit, principally, of that part of Virginia east of the Alle- ghanies. Many of the citizens of the western part of the state made up their minds not to follow the east any longer. Union men met quietly and secretly to devise measures to counteract those being taken by the former leaders in the politics of the county. Some of these meetings in Weston were held in the Hale-Vandervort store, some at the Hale shoe shop, some at Chalfant's drug store and others at various private houses, all under the cover of night and their secret closely guarded. Con- federate sentiment in Weston was also very strong. A mass convention at Clarksburg April 22, at which many Lewis County men were present, adopted resolu- tions calling a convention of the loyal citizens of the state to meet at Wheeling on May 13, and recommending that each county send at least five delegates. The re- sponse in Lewis County was immediate. At a meeting said to have been held in the Hale store near the western end of the covered bridge across the West Fork, the Union men chose as delegates F. M. Chalfant, Alexander Scott Withers, J. W. Hudson, P. M. Hale, Jesse Woofter, W. L. Grant, J. Amen and J. A. J. Lightburn. All at- tended the convention. The purpose of the convention, which met before the vote on the secession ordinance, was to agree upon concerted action to be taken in case the Ordinance was ratified. Mr. Withers was appointed a member of the committee on state and federal relations, and in this committee the first discussion of the question of the formation of a new state came up. Some of the more advanced Union men wanted a new state immediately, the Wood County delegation, for instance, displaying a banner with the words, "New Virginia — Now or Never." While the convention discussed constitutional objec- tions, Francis H. Pierpont evolved a plan afterwards fol- lowed by which western Virginia could be constitution- ally separated from the old state. As a first step he pro- posed that the convention should wait until the popular vote on the ordinance had decided finally whether Vir- ginia should remain in the Union or not. It was neces- sary, in order to secure a semblance of legality, that ac- tion looking toward the formation of a new state should be taken by a body duly called and whose members had been duly elected by the people. He therefore proposed that an election should be held on June 4, to select dele- gates for a second convention which should devise such measures as the welfare of the people of northwestern Virginia seemed to demand. His motion was adopted, and consideration of the formation of the new state was delayed. The ordinance of secession was carried at the spe- cial election by a large majority of the state at large, but the people of western Virginia opposed it by a vote of ten to one. Lewis County was almost unanimously opposed save for the polling precincts at Walkersville, Hall's store, Little Skin creek and part of the vote at Weston. The election of delegates from Lewis County to the second Wheeling convention resulted in the choice of P. M. Hale, a rising young business man of Weston, and J. A. J. Lightburn, a Baptist minister of the Broad run community, who was soon to lay aside the staff of the shepherd and take up the sword in order that he might make the triumph of righteousness more certain. The division which arose in the convention between Carlile, who desired to form a new state immediately, and Pier- pont, who wished to reorganize the government of Vir- ginia, led to a deadlock which was broken, so a tradi- tional account goes, by a short speech by P. M. Hale, which won over the other delegates to the plan of Pier- pont. The convention adopted the plan which provided that new officers should be elected to take the places of those who had followed the state in seceding from the Union, and that a new government should be established at Wheeling The convention also passed an ordinance submitting to the people the question of whether they wished to form a new state out of that part of Virginia lying west of the Alleghanies. P. M. Hale and J. A. J. Lightburn sat in the House of Delegates and Blackwell Jackson in the Senate when the legislature declared the offices of the state vacant, by reason of the fact that the holders had renounced their allegiance to the United States, and elected loyal men to fill them. Not all the people of Lewis County took advantage of the opportunity to vote on the ordinance to cre- ate a new state. By the time of the election, Union troops had entered the county, and the Confederate sym.- pathizers feared to vote their sentiments. Only 455 votes were cast. The ordinance was ratified with but twelve dissenting votes in the county. Judge Robert Er- vine was elected to represent the county in the constitu- tional convention which framed the first constitution of the state of West Virginia. The remainder of the his- tory of the formation of West Virginia is state history rather than county history, and it is therefore passed over. One point is not to be forgotten, however, and that is that P. M. Hale, the delegate from Lewis in the first legislature of West Virginia, served on the commit- tee on education and was largely instrumental in fram- ing the first free school law of the new state. During the Civil war the majority of the people of Lewis County took sides with the Union. Out of a to- tal of perhaps 1300 voters in 1861, it is estimated that 1000 sided with the federal government or were luke- warm in their adherence to the Confederacy, and the others actively supported the Southern cause. All of Freeman's creek with the exception of the later comers like the Simmons and Rexroads were unanimously for the North , few southern soldiers enlisted from there. The same may be said of Hacker's creek, where the Con- federates had high hopes that Blackwell Jackson, a cousin of "Stonewall", would be able to bring the people to their side. Unfortunately for them, he himself was one of the most loyal Union men. Stone Coal creek was almost solidly for the North, as were Murphy's creek, Rush run and Canoe run. All the Irish and Ger- mans who had settled in the Sand fork and Leading creek sections espoused the cause of the United States because they knew nothing and cared nothing for the rights of states. They knew merely that they owed their enjoyment of liberty to the national government and that they had just sworn to support it. The Confederate sections of the county were prin- cipally in the southern end. The citizens of Skin creek under the leadership of Colonel Peterson and others be- lieved that the rights of Virginia were being put in jeopardy by the citizens of the northern states, and they prepared to defend the state from invasion. The Collins Settlement, which was peopled mainly by emigrants from the Shenandoah valley and other parts of Virginia, un- der the vigorous leadership of the Bennetts, Regers, Watsons and others presented such a united front in favor of the Confederacy that it was called "Dixie" by those of Union sympathies. Weston was badly divided in sentiment. The rep- resentatives of some of the old families — men like Dr. Bland, Captain Boykin, A. A. Lewis, Jonathan M. Ben- nett and many others — sided with the Confederacy. The later comers who had been attracted to the town by reason of the advance of industry in the 'fifties and es- pecially through the location of the asylum in the town, generally cast their lot with the Union. The Union men were probably in a majority. The neighboring counties were almost as much di- vided as Lewis. Harrison, though strongly Union for the most part, had a strong Southern group on Duck creek, just north of the Lewis County line. Upshur was almost solidly for the North, with the exception of a set- tlement in the extreme southern part of the county, cor- responding to the Collins Settlement in Lewis; though the French creek settlement exercised a great influence in holding the region around it, both in Upshur and on the Left fork of West Fork in Lewis, for the Union. Web- ster, Braxton, Gilmer, Clay and most of the other so- called "back counties" sent more soldiers into the Con- federate than into the Union forces. The Webster Coun- ty court protested against paying taxes to West Virginia, declaring that county still a part of Virginia. Some Union men pointed out the fact that the territory of Webster was separated from the remainder of Virginia by a part of West Virginia; and if they did not want to be in the new state the only course would be to form an independent state. It has been called the "Independent State" ever since. The state militia which had been organized with such lack of care by Virginia did not all respond to her call. Out of the two regiments which paraded on Henry Butcher's meadow, only about twenty-five men marched away to join the forces of the state. They were assigned to Company "I", 31st Virginia Regiment, C. S. A., under Captain Jackson, and experienced some of the bitterest fighting of the whole war. The bodies of many of them lie buried on the battlefields of northern Virginia. Be- sides the men who left with the militia for the rendez- vous of the Confederates, many later joined other organ- izations. Thomas J. Jackson, who had been a second lieutenant in 1845, and whose later life had been spent in the army or in the classrooms of the Virginia Military Institute, joined his fortunes to those of his state, and was recognized as perhaps the greatest military genius of the war. Four companies were raised in Lewis County for the service of the United States — companies "C" and "D" of the 10th Virginia Infantry and companies "B" and "D" of the 15th West Virginia Infantry. Company "B", 15th West Virginia Infantry was organized and commanded by Captain Michael Egan, whose bold stand for the United States on the occasion of the last muster had made him generally known throughout the county. Thomas D. Murrin was captain of Company "D", 10th Virginia Infantry; William J. Nicholes, of Company "C" of the same regiment; and Jasper Peterson of Company "D" of the 15th West Virginia Infantry. In addition to the four companies there were numerous Lewis County citizens who joined other organizations. The most dis- tinguished of these was J. A. J. Lightburn, who had or- ganized the 4th Virginia regiment, commanded for a time the district of the Kanawha, conducted a masterly retreat from Charleston in the face of a superior enemy force, was wounded at the gates of Atlanta, and was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general for gallantry in action. -----------------------------------------------------------