The Great Schism: The Dividing of Virginia during the American Civil War

The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia found itself in a precarious situation during the Civil War. To the west, a group of radicals sought to divide the state. To the east lay the Old Dominion, with its eastern landowning establishment that had controlled Virginia society and politics since colonial days. Wedged between these warring interests, Valley residents had to tred a careful path--sometimes siding with the west about the eastern stranglehold on the privilege to vote; sometimes siding with the east about the exhorbitant costs for the building of roads, canals, and rail lines to the west. In the end, the Valley sided with the Old Dominion over the secession issue, but how did the northwestern radicals effect the coup that divided a state against its will?

Until 1850, the economic, political, and social divisions in Virginia were substantially the same as those found in the nation, with westward expansion acting as a catalyst to magnify sectional differences. During this period, the Shenandoah Valley shared the interests of the western part of the state. Following the convention of 1850, northwestern radicals took control of the forces that ultimately led to the division of Virginia into two states, and both the Valley and the southwestern Appalachian regions sought to distance themselves from the northwest. Secession, of course, opened the door for the radicals to effect the “political rape” that produced the illegitimate child of West Virginia.