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opment of the whole country. Virginia is moving forward in the march with new hopes and new aspirations; and in this the New Year of the beginning of the twentieth century West Virginians present the compliments of the century and wish Virginians the happy return of the centuries to come.

CHAPTER XII.

THE CIVIL WAR.

1. The North and the South.-In 1861 the final struggle for supremacy began between the North and the South. For many years there had been more or less controversy; and as time passed, the feeling between the two sections of country grew more bitter. This feeling had manifested itself in the newspapers, in political debates, in books, in lectures, and in every way by which the people expressed their beliefs or their principles. It was not so much a division along political lines, as a geographical division. It was not faction against faction, or party against party; but one section of the country was arrayed against another section. It was the North against the South, and the South against the North. It was the slaveholder against the opponent of slavery. Viewed from any and from every standpoint; examined with prejudice or without prejudice; considered in its political aspect, or as an historical question; still the causes leading to the great Civil War are found to spring from and to rest upon the question of geography. Had slavery been profitable in the cold climate of the North, and unprofitable in the warm South, the people of the North would probably have been slaveholders and the southern people would have opposed the institution. The labor of slaves was not remunerative in the northern part of the United States; but in the South the case was different. From this fact grew the difference of sentiment, and sentiment developed into prejudice and passion and anger. Anger obeys no law but force, and force was called upon to settle the long-standing controversy.

2. The Spread of Slavery.—When States began to be formed from the new territory west of the Mississippi, the people of the North undertook to exclude slavery. The southern people endeavored to legalize slavery within the new States then being formed. Partisan feeling ran so high that civil war seemed imminent in the West long before it began in the South. Politicians devised and formulated compromises which proved inadequate to allay the mistrust or cool the anger on either side. In the South many people believed and openly proclaimed that there could be no permanent peace so long as the North and the South were under one government. In the southern States the doctrine became popular that any State had a right to withdraw from the Union when it pleased. The doctrine was not new; neither was it peculiar to the South. During the war of 1812 a party proclaiming the right of secession appeared in New England and developed considerable strength. But when the troubles leading to the Civil War came on, the advocates of secession were nearly all found in the slave States.

3. The Election of Lincoln.-The presidential election of 1860 was a contest in which rival powers of the South and of the North strove for supremacy. Abraham Lincoln was elected. The South viewed the result with alarm, and claimed that the institution of slavery was in danger, because the newly elected President was known to be opposed to it. The danger was more imaginary than real; but the people of several southern States were so firmly convinced that they would suffer loss in political power, as well as loss of property, if they remained in the Union, that they called conventions and passed ordinances of secession; and uniting in a compact, they set up a government of their own, styling it the Confederate States of America. This was the commencement of the Civil War. President Lincoln took steps to enforce the Federal authority in some of the States which had seceded, and force was met with force. He called for 75,000 volunteer soldiers to uphold the Government's authority in the South; and

Jefferson Davis, who had been elected President of the Confederate States, called out 35,000 volunteers to meet the invading armies from the North. By June 1, 1861, eleven authority of the United

States were in rebellion against the
States. They were Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas,
Louisiana and Texas.

4. Comparison of Strength.--The population of the North was three times that of the South, and in wealth the proportion was about the same. The statesmen in the South realized that in numbers the odds were against them; but they counted upon ultimate victory; for they did not believe that the North was in earnest. They also affected to believe that, man for man, the southern soldier was far superior to those from the northern States. They still further counted upon their cotton as a power, and they boasted that "Cotton was King." They believed that European countries would not permit the supply of cotton to be cut off, and that the United States would be compelled to fight those countries, if it blockaded southern ports and prevented the exportation of that valuable article of commerce. But the war proved that

cotton was not king: steel was king. The North's machinery and factories gave it a strength which the South, an agricultural country, could not successfully resist.

5. An Extensive Subject.-The Civil War is a subject too extensive for general treatment in a state history. So wide was the field of operations, and so numerous were the actors and actions, that those who wish general information along that line should seek it in books devoted to that subject alone. Suffice it to say that after four years of war the North was victorious, slavery was abolished, and the great questions which had so long disturbed the country were settled by force of arms. West Virginia was a very small factor in that gigantic struggle; but, in proportion to their wealth and their numbers, the people of this State did as much as those of any

other State. The leading events in the war, so far as they took place within West Virginia, or immediately concerned it, will be set forth in the following pages.

6. The John Brown Raid.—In the year 1859 John Brown with a few followers attempted to excite a revolt among the slaves of Virginia. He was a native of Connecticut, but had been a resident of Kansas, and had taken an active part in the troubles growing out of the slavery question in that State. He was an Abolitionist and believed that slavery should be stamped out by the best means available for that purpose. He had made the freeing of the slaves the ruling motive of his life. He was a brave man, but his judgment was not clear; at any rate he miscalculated the effects which his bold stroke would produce, and underestimated the strength of the opposition which he would meet. He believed that the slaves would rise, and free themselves if he would give them a word of encouragement and show them the way. In this he was mistaken. They showed no inclination to rebel or to make trouble. Brown hoped that there would be little or no bloodshed. His plan was for the negroes to march with such arms as they could lay their hands on, and reach the free States of the North; but he expected them to use whatever force might be necessary to accomplish that end. He provided guns, pistols, and spears with which to arm the slaves. In this violent procedure Brown did not represent the general sentiment of the North, where a very great majority of the people were firm supporters of law and order, and were not in sympathy with revolutionary methods.

7. Harper's Ferry as a Rallying Point.-Brown chose Harper's Ferry as the rallying point for his forces, and as the place where the first blow should be struck. He rented a farm in the vicinity, and he there accumulated arms in considerable quantities. These were shipped to him from some point in the North; but whence they came, and by whom shipped, never was ascertained to a certainty. The muni

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