In 1861, while still part of Virginia, the western region that later became West Virginia was the setting for the first campaign of America’s Civil War, as many local 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 and July 1861 his army won the inaugural Union victories of the war there. Celebrated as the North’s first battlefield hero, McClellan was called to Washington on July 22 after the Union defeat at Manassas, Virginia, while Federal troops occupied western Virginia and loyal delegates met in Wheeling to form the Restored Government of Virginia, a Union government opposing the Confederate government in Richmond. By August 1861, Confederate General Robert E. Lee tried and failed to reclaim western Virginia, and troops from both armies remained to guard the mountain passes through a terrible winter. By 1862, the conflict had shifted east, but the campaign had proved decisive, for the western counties under Union control became the new state of West Virginia in 1863. The hard fighting in these mountains forged armies and leaders, notably McClellan, Lee, and Stonewall Jackson, who went on to shape the course of the Civil War.