USA > West Virginia > Preston County > A History of Preston County, West Virginia, V.1 > Part 14
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Slavery was not the prime cause of the war. As a rule it was not cruel. If this had been the case, the Southern men would not have dared to leave their homes to go to war, and the negroes would not have remained quiet. Slavery was a burden which the South disliked, but which it saw no near and easy way to get rid of. It was realized that sudden emancipation would work great hardship for a long while. But sudden emancipation was not generally in the mind of the North in 1861. It was at length resorted to as a means of ending the war.
As was mentioned in a preceding chapter, the American colonies in 1776 were a cluster of independent republics. They were not yet a sin- gle nation in any true sense of the word. Their union was at first merely a league. The "more perfect" union sought in the adoption of a Federal government was viewed as a union of consent both North and South. It was undertaken as an experiment, and so long as it was viewed as such, it could not be looked upon as necessarily perpetual any more than in the case of a business partnership.
A spirit of real nationality had therefore to develop from a small be- ginning, and the Federal Union supplied the soil for its growth. As we have seen, the West was national from the start. The national feeling took hold of the seaboard North, though not in the same degree. But wherever a sense of nationalism did come to prevail, it brought with it the firm belief that sovereignty lay in the Union itself, and not in the states; that the Union was perpetual in its very nature, and its preserva- tion a patriotic duty.
Southern men who went northward became as the Northern and Western people, just as Northern and Western people became as the Southerners by settling in the South. But to a much larger extent the Southern people pushed westward along the coast, and founded new Virginias and Carolinas. The South did not have an interior West be- hind it to foster a spirit of nationality. It was agricultural, and not in- dustrial, and was therefore conservative. By virtue of these and other
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causes, the South lingered in much the same atmosphere as that of the colonial period. It followed purely as a matter of course that the South continued to view the states as sovereign and the Union a confedera- tion. It therefore still held the belief that a state might withdraw from the Union, just as a man may withdraw from a partnership.
The North held the same opinion at first, but abandoned this atti- tude as harmful after coming to view the Union as a nation. Having arrived at a full acquiescence in the nationalistic idea, the North could see more clearly than the South that the doctrine of state sovereignty was incompatible with that of genuine nationalism. To command re- spect, either at home or abroad, a country must be strong, and this is hardly possible unless its people freely concede the unity and perpetuity of its government. Otherwise a country cannot deal efficiently with domestic strain or foreign foe. Had America been a nation ot the time of the war for independence, that struggle would have closed in 1777. Had it been a nation in 1812, the New England states would not have been a stumbling block in the second war with England. Had Wash- ington been a James Buchanan, the Whiskey Insurrection of 1794 would have established a precedent whereby a community might suit its own pleasure as to obeying a Federal law.
In another chapter we sketched some of the outward phases of the world movement which came to a head about 1848. The underlying cause of this movement was an assertion of popular rights, both polit- ical and economic. It was a deep-seated revolt against the claims of entrenched privilege. It demanded freedom in labor and opportunity ; it demanded a general exercise of the right to vote; it demanded free public schools; it demanded improved machinery, because this would lead to better homes and more general comfort.
This spirit of the age acting upon the American people required them to become homogeneous in political thought and industrial meth- ods. It required the Americans of the South to put slavery aside, be- cause it was hopelessly out of date as a labor system, and was against the tendencies of the new age.
The war of 1861 was simply a short cut in this general direction. Society moves either by evolution or revolution; with a step or with a' leap. The former process would in the long run have worked its will on the South. The clash was brought on by the impatience of the busy, industrial North with the slower-moving, agricultural South. The lat- ter section was, in effect, asked to put on at once a pair of new shoes without first breaking them in. It instinctively objected to being
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driven. But the stronger force prevailed, the political and industrial handicaps were brushed aside, and the South was overcome. The South- ern people quite willingly proceeded to rebuild their section on the lines which had proved such a source of power to their victorious rival. By so doing, they have prospered more than was possible under the antiquated system of slavery.
The spirit of the age thus impelled the North to nationalize the Union. The result was entirely successful, and to the advantage of the whole country. The North, with much the greater population, and with a long lead in wealth, commerce, general education, and industrial effi- ciency, had nevertheless, as a result of national politics, seen the presi- dential chair controlled almost without interruption by the planter aris- tocracy of the South. The time came when it believed itself better en- titled than the South to guide the conduct of national affairs. To this end the North organized the Republican party, and since this movement was antagonistic to the drift of recognized Southern interests, that party was necessarily sectional.
Nations and peoples are moved upon by forces which they feel, yet - cannot clearly explain. To find articulate expression, watch-words are seized upon. This was noticeably true of the long quarrel which pre- ceded the clash of 1861. Both Northern and Southern people found watch-words in the phrasing of the Federal Constitution, in terms which had to do with slavery, and in the more striking utterances of their political leaders. When William H. Seward spoke of a "higher law," he really referred to an interpretation of the Constitution in ac- cordance with the conditions true of the North in 1860. When he spoke of an "irrepressible conflict," he alluded to the impossibility of reconciling the spirit of the age with a labor system which was not free, could not use modern machinery, and was linked with institutions not American, but aristocratic.
Before coming to those aspects of the war which immediately con- cern this county, it is necessary to take up these two topics : the matter of slavery and the disruption of Virginia.
Strange as it might seem, slavery has helped the human race to ac- quire civilization. So long as man remains a savage, he will not learn the lesson of steady labor. But there comes along a far-seeing, reso- lute ruler, who puts his people to work and compels them to keep work- ing. Generations of slaves succeed one another, and what was at first done under protest becomes a matter of habit. When the slave has become industrious on his own account, he is industrially efficient. He
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breaks his own fetters, because they can no longer be kept on him. He thus becomes a free citizen. But so long as a country is organized on an aristocratic basis the desire for slavery continues. Paupers, ne'er- do-wells, convicts, and people of a colored race are still kept in servi- tude. If, on the other hand, there is a democratic structure of society, slavery is not wanted, because it is always less efficient than free labor. Pennsylvania was democratic from the start, and had very few slaves. The eastern district of Virginia was aristocratic from the start, and soon had great numbers of slaves. But the mountain counties of Vir- ginia were settled chiefly by men of the Pennsylvania type, and among them slaves were much fewer than was the case east of the Blue Ridge.
American slavery did something for the negro, but was an evil to the white man. It gave the former the English language, the Christian faith, and a veneer of civilization. As to the white man, it corrupted his language and warped his moral vision. In the words of Dr. Ruff- ner, himself a Virginian and a slaveholder, the institution was keeping out immigration and white labor, crippling industry of every kind, im- posing hurtful social ideals on the whites, and proving a hindrance to popular education. In 1832 an emancipation bill came within one vote of passing the Virginia Assembly.
Almost the only immigrants to this county who made use of slavery were men like Fairfax, who came from east of the Blue Ridge. They were possessed of wealth and influence, were good judges of land, and where they settled they introduced the plantation system. The strong- hold of slavery in Preston was quite naturally, therefore, the superior agricultural lands in the south of Valley. In fact, slaves were scarcely to be found beyond a half hour's walk from the line of the Winchester and Clarksburg road. There seem to have been none in Grant, Pleasant, and Union, and no more than a very nominal representation in Lyon and Reno. There were few in Portland, or in Kingwood district, out- side the county seat.
The high-water mark of slavery in Preston was reached in 1830, when there were 125 slaves and 27 free colored persons. Ten years be- fore there had been 80 slaves and only 6 free colored. But from 1830 there was a steady decrease in the number of slaves and a steady increase in the number of the free colored, the respective figures for 1860 being 67 and 45. In 1830 there had been one slave to 32 whites. In 1860 there was only one slave to 197 whites. These figures show that during the thirty years preceding the war there was a growing senti-
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ment against slavery, and that in a material point of view it was un- suited to this region, and distinctly unprofitable.
We now come to the dividing of the Old Dominion-a topic which has an important bearing on our local history.
Virginia was the first of the colonies. It was for 35 years the first of the states in population, and for a while was the foremost wheat- growing state. It was also for a time the most influential, and supplied an unusual proportion of the earlier statesmen of the republic, even apart from the seven presidents who were natives of the common- wealth. In this highly honorable record every one of the 149 counties which existed in 1860 has a right to claim a direct interest.
By 1860 Virginia was outstripped in the number of her inhabitants by four of her sister states. She was poor, and even in the South was no longer first in influence. The causes of this decadence do not vitally concern the portion of the state torn off, and will not, therefore, be dis- cussed.
By 1800, or earlier, two subdivisions of Virginia were recognized, even in an official sense. These were the Eastern and the Western dis- tricts, the line between them being the Blue Ridge. The first was set- tled almost wholly by Englishmen, the plantation system prevailed, and there were two-thirds as many blacks as there were whites. The Western district was settled very largely by Scotch-Irish and Germans, who generally came direct from Pennsylvania. These people were small farmers, and owned very few slaves. They were democratic in both theory and practice, while the East was aristocratic.
But while in its social and industrial organization the northern half of the Valley of Virginia was like the rest of the Western District, it was yet very strong in its state feeling. The Blue Ridge is here nar- row, and these counties were in much closer contact with the political drift of the Eastern district than was the case west of the Alleghany divide. Also, the proportion of slaves was much larger than the aver- age for the Western district. Thus the Shenandoah Valley was in a partial sense an intermediate zone between the two sections of the state.
West of the Alleghanies, the direction of travel and trade was largely toward the Ohio River. The only railroad across that region did not even touch the Eastern District. It passed into Maryland, and the per- son going by rail from Kingwood to Richmond had to travel nearly as far as would carry him to the capital of Indiana.
With little travel and less trade between the two sides of the Alle-
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ghanies, with differences in the populations, and with resulting differ- ences in the views of the inhabitants, a divergence and a consequent lack of sympathy were inevitable. The only conspicuous bond between the two sections being the state government. the chief source of friction came through the policy of this government. The Eastern district was comparatively old and populous before the Western had become much settled. The laws had therefore been framed by the former, and they reflected the views of its people. The members of the legislature from the western counties began to ask for new laws, or for different applica- tions of existing laws. So far as these new views ran counter to those of the people of the other section they were, as a matter of course, re- sisted.
The older Virginia lived much in the past. It was proud of its his- tory and devoted to its ideals. It regarded the "peasantry of the west" as a rude, uncouth, semi-illiterate folk, having little in common with the dwellers toward the sea.
Should the western counties become in time able to outvote the eastern, they would then dictate the policy of the state and adapt the laws to their own special interests. But the Virginians of the east had no mind to see their cherished institutions subverted by a race of log- cabin dwellers, who owned few slaves and worked with their own hands. So it became their policy to control the state government as long as they could. The state officials were taken almost wholly from the eastern counties, only one governor of the undivided state being chosen from west of the mountains. The apportionment of delegates was made in so ingenious a manner as to enable the eastern counties to outvote the western, even beyond the excess of population in the for- mer. Slave property was thrown into the scale as a partial basis of representation. In 1860 the counties now comprising Virginia had 70 percent of the white population and 98 percent of the negroes. It thus looked as though the center of political gravity would lie east of the mountains for years to come.
The developing western counties clamored for turnpikes and other public improvements. The stagnating eastern counties thought to ar- rest their own relative decline by introducing a system of improved highways. Having the "say," they took good care to get the lion's share of the appropriations. The northern Panhandle asked for a local system of free schools. The planters east of the mountains did not ap- prove of free schools, and the poor man had access to the authorized
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schools only by becoming a public charge so far as the support of the teacher was concerned.
Such matters as these were irritating to the people beyond the Alle- ghany. They were being governed almost on the basis of a colonial population, and it is notoriously true that no colony has ever found it easy to get the ear of the home government. The people of the east of the state were taking care of Number One by seeking to stave off a transfer of political power to the westward face of the Alleghanies. Yet, had the western counties gained the upper hand prior to 1860, it is a fair question whether they, in turn, would not have looked out for Number One in the way of legislation more or less distasteful to the eastern.
The census of 1910 was to show that the white population of the old Western district was more than double that of the Eastern. Had there been no war in 1861, one of two things would have occurred. The Western district, by at length gaining control of the state, would have revised the laws and institutions in its own interest, or it would have forced a partition of Virginia. The former alternative is the more probable. The Constitutional Convention of 1829 had treated the wishes of the western counties with scant consideration. That of 1850 was conciliatory, because the rate of increase during this interval was on the side of those counties. Since this tendency was to continue, the western counties could at length have removed their grounds of disaf- fection, or else the separatist feeling would have passed to the eastern side of the Blue Ridge.
Some interesting considerations here suggest themselves; interest. ing, however, only because they illustrate what "might have been."
The natural line of cleavage, as we have seen, was the Blue Ridge. Had there been a peaceful separation of the districts prior to 1860, and without the agency of the Federal government, the new state would have been another Kentucky, and Southern in its prevailing sympathies. There is more than an even chance that it would have cast its lot on the side of the Confederacy, and if so, with serious results to the Union cause. It is true that the vote against secession in the counties now forming West Virginia was 40,000 against 4,000. Yet the Unionism which this vote revealed was largely of the Southern type, rather than the Northern.
It is significant, in this connection, that although the greater portion of the new state was soon brought within the Federal lines, the propor-
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tion of Federal to Confederate soldiers from West Virginia was not ten to one, but scarcely even four to one. Had the state been held from the outset mainly within the Confederate lines, the proportion of Confed- erate soldiers would have been much greater. It is further significant, that after the disabilities of the ex-Confederate soldiers were removed by the Flick amendment in 1871, the political control of the state passed at once to the ex-Confederate wing of the Democratic party, just as was the case in Kentucky and Missouri.
In the spring of 1861, a line drawn on the map of Virginia between Harper's Ferry and Huntington would have had much significance. North of this line, the commercial relations of the people were very largely with Pennsylvania and Ohio, and a majority of the people espoused the Federal cause. South of this line, the people were in much closer touch with Southern sentiment, and had little direct com- mercial contact with the North. Consequently, their sympathies were generally Confederate. Thus, while the people of the Western district desired separate statehood, they were divided into Federal Separatists and Confederate Separatists. The shock of war caused the latter wing to drop the statehood issue from early consideration, and to center their attention on the secession issue in general. The Federal Sepa- ratists, by allying themselves with the Federal government, made swift and effective use of their opportunity, and the state of West Virginia was the result. They secured the inclusion in the new state of many counties wherein the Confederate Separatists wre in a numerical ma- jority. But the old state saved to herself 31 counties of the Western district, these now containing two-fifths of her white population.
It might at first blush be thought that there was no essential differ- ence between the secession of West Virginia from Virginia and the se- cession of the parent state from the Union. Yet there is an important distinction. In the former instance, no question of nationality was in- volved. It was more like the dividing of an unwieldy county for the sake of fairer and more convenient local administration.
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CHAPTER XV
PRESTON IN WAR TIME.
The Presidential Campaign of 1860 - Tense Feeling in Virginia - Attitude of the Preston People - Preston Soldiers - The Jones Raid.
The four-cornered presidential campaign of 1860 was the most re- markable in the history of the Union. There were four candidates, be- cause the country had become sectionalized. Each section put up a rad- ical and a conservative candidate. The North put forward Lincoln and Douglas, both being Northern men. The South put forward Brecken- ridge and Bell, both being Southern men. Lincoln and Breckenridge represented the extremes in this four-sided contest. Lincoln, the Re- publican candidate, stood on a platform opposed to any further exten- sion of slavery. Breckenridge, the candidate of the pro-slavery Demo- crats, stood on a platform which affirmed the Dred Scott decision, and held that a master might settle with his slaves in any of the territories. Douglas, the Northern conservative, and Bell, the Southern conserva- tive, touched the slavery issue in a gingerly manner.
In the slave states, only one man in sixty cast his ballot for Lincoln, and no ballots were counted except the few returned in the border states. In the free states, only one man in forty cast his ballot for Brecken- ridge, and the proportion would have been smaller but for a fusion of the Democratic voters in New Jersey. Yet a considerable number of Northern men voted for Bell, and a considerable number of Southern men voted for Douglas.
In Virginia Bell carried the state, leading Breckenridge a few hun- dred votes. Douglas had a large following, and a very few votes were thrown for Lincoln. In the light of what was soon to happen, it is somewhat surprising that Preston county gave a majority for Brecken- ridge. When the crisis came, a few months later, the followers of Breck- enridge were elsewhere generally secessionists, and in a less degree this was true of the Bell men. The supporters of Lincoln were Union- ists to a man, and the Douglas men in the North became known as the war Democrats of that section.
The news of the election was soon followed by the secession of the seven cotton states. They have been censured for taking action so has- tily, yet intuition told them the course of events would drive the Lin- coln men beyond the moderate program they had announced.
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The northern tier of slave states sympathized with the cotton states, yet were reluctant to leave the Union. They upheld, however, the state sovereignty dogma, and this involved a denial of the right of the Fed- eral government to use force on a seceding state. Virginia was divided in feeling. East of the Blue Ridge the secessionists were active and aggressive, yet thus far they were a decided minority of the voters of the state.
During the four months between the presidential election and the firing on Sumter, the tension of feeling in the border states was acute. In the West Virginia counties were hosts of men who were in a quan- dary as to whether their first duty was to the nation or the state. In such a frame of mind they were very responsive to the influence exerted by their prominent citizens. In Preston, nearly all the leaders of pub- lic opinion took a prompt, uncompromising, and aggressive stand in favor of the Union. Among them was William B. Zinn, one of the largest slaveholders in the county. The effect of this firm attitude was to leave only a few citizens to stand by an advocacy of secession.
The first public expression was at Fellowsville, where a mass meet- ing condemned a siding of Virginia with the seceded states. On No- vember 12, during a session of the county court, there was a large crowd of people in Kingwood, and it embraced all shades of political opinion. Speeches were made by Waitman T. Willey, William G. Brown, and others, and at the close of the meeting a series of resolutions was adopted without a dissenting vote. These pledged the extreme oppo- sition of the people of the county to the secession of their state.
The legislature met in extra session January 7, 1861. Robert K. Cowen and John Scott were the delegates from Preston, and they united in a letter of information to their constituents. A bill was passed calling a convention of 152 members to determine whether or not Virginia should stand by the Union, and also whether there should be any changes in the organic law of the state. A substitute bill, pro- viding that the call for the convention be first submitted to the people, was voted down. Such a course is not unusual in the political usage of the South, but it was without precedent in the history of Virginia. The measure that passed was finally amended, so as to permit the people to pass upon the action of the convention. In several of the Southern states the ordinances of secession were not referred to the people. It looked as though the leaders of the separatist movement feared to re- veal the strength of the opposition existing in several of their states.
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