The First Campaign

West Virginia, though still part of Virginia in 1861, became the setting for the first campaign of America's Civil War as many western citizens remained loyal to the Union rather than the Confederacy. By late May, Union General George B. McClellan, commanding the Department of the Ohio, ordered troops across the Ohio River to secure Western Virginia for the Union, and during June-July 1861 his army won the inaugural Union victories of the war. Celebrated as the North's first battlefield hero, McClellan was called to Washington on July 22 after the Union defeat at Manassas, while Federal troops occupied Western Virginia and loyal delegates met in Wheeling to create the Restored Government of Virginia in opposition to the Confederate government in Richmond. In August 1861, Confederate General Robert E. Lee tried and failed to reclaim Western Virginia, and both armies remained to guard the mountain passes through a terrible winter. By 1862 the conflict had shifted east, but the campaign had already proved decisive: the western counties under Union control became the new state of West Virginia in 1863, and the hard fighting in these mountains helped forge armies and leaders, notably McClellan, Lee, and Stonewall Jackson, who would shape the course of the Civil War.

West Virginia · United States