Child of rebellion

Some time back, Kenny McBee asked us to explain how the Eastern Panhandle counties of Morgan, Berkeley and Jefferson came to be part of West Virginia.

Anyone looking at a map of the Mountain State has to wonder why the three northeastern counties dangle off the West Virginia mainland. And, if you’ve spent any time deeper in the state, you know that folks down there aren’t quite sure we’re really part of West Virginia, either.

The standard state history holds that Virginia’s western mountain counties felt alienated from the plantation, slave-owning culture of the Old Dominion and were not fully represented in Virginia politics and economic development. So, when Virginia seceded from the Union at the start of the Civil War in early 1861, the mountaineers seized the moment to leave Old Virginia and stayed true to the Union.

On June 20, 1863, West Virginia became the 35th state, with President Abraham Lincoln’s blessing. Arthur Boreman, the first governor, summed it up by saying, “Our State is the Child of the Rebellion.”

But none of this explains why Morgan, Berkeley and Jefferson counties, with their close ties to Virginia even today, became part of the new state.
Local historian Fred Newbraugh discussed the attitudes of the time in his Warm Springs Echoes, Volume II. He said there wasn’t much pro-secession spirit in Morgan County and many just hoped to sit the whole thing out. Of course, this proved impossible. When a vote was taken in May 1861, the county went 6 to 1 in favor of staying in the Union. By then, however, some of the most pro-Southern men had left to join the Confederate army.
What has often been left unsaid — but can’t be underestimated — is the strategic value of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Lincoln and his advisers knew they needed to keep transportation lines open to and from the west. This meant the B & O tracks had to stay under U.S. control. Since the railroad crisscrossed the Potomac, it was crucial to keep Morgan, Berkeley and Jefferson counties in the Union, as well.

Indeed, much of the Civil War activity in these parts consisted of Confederate attacks on the railroad or on the C & O Canal, a lesser but still important method of transporting people and goods.

So, for better or worse, Morgan County became part of the new state of West Virginia. We’d say it’s for the better, but now and then some people hanker to be part of the Old Dominion again. You know how it is. There never seems to be a shortage of folks who want to fight the Civil War all over again or can’t accept that the right side won in 1865.