West Virginia Histories: Days of Slavery, Civil War and Aftermath, Statehood and Beyond

The State of West Virginia was born by cesarean section, its survival chances precarious, its legitimacy in question. The last slaveholding state admitted to the Union, it is the only state that owes its existence to America's Civil War. In Virginia's counties west of the Shenandoah Valley grievances against the Richmond government had long threatened to rend the state in two, and when Virginia decided to secede from the Union the fissure opened. A convention of Westerners voted to break away and seek independent statehood for their section, a dangerous and potentially unconstitutional path.

The 100 articles that comprise Volume 2 of the West Virginia Histories series explore:

• Aspects of slavery in Virginia's western mountains and its role in East-West tensions
• Civil War battles, raids and other stories, including history's first military raid on an oil field
• The region's tumultuous road to becoming the 35th state of the Union.

Most of the articles originally appeared as a weekly column, "Once, Long Ago," published in the Sunday Clarksburg Exponent Telegram between 1998 and 2014. Others were written expressly for this collection, including an updating of one authored for the June 2011 issue of Wonderful West Virginia magazine.

Gerald D. Swick is the author of Historic Photos of West Virginia. He has written for the West Virginia Encyclopedia, America's Civil War, American History, and other publications. His work has been recognized with a literary fellowship in nonfiction writing, and his "Once, Long Ago" column, with its unique voice and conversational style, received an Associated Press Lifestyles Writing award for excellence in journalism.