CHAPTER XIII.

BOREMAN'S ADMINISTRATION (1863-1869).

1. The New State Government.-President Lincoln having issued his proclamation on April 20, 1863, that the people of West Virginia had made and ratified certain changes in the Constitution as provided for by the act of admission, approved December 31, 1862, and that on June 20, 1863, the act admitting the State into the Union would take effect, a convention was thereupon assembled in Parkersburg, on May 9, 1863, for the purpose of nominating state officers.

2. The Executive Officers Chosen.-The executive officers nominated by this convention were Arthur I. Boreman, of Wood County, for Governor; Samuel Crane of Randolph, for Auditor; Campbell Tarr of Brooke, for Treasurer; J. Edgar Boyer of Tyler, for Secretary of State; and A. Bolton Caldwell of Ohio, for Attorney-General; all of whom were elected without opposition on the fourth Thursday in May, 1863, and assumed the duties of their respective offices on the 20th day of June following.

3. The First Legislature. The members of the first legislature that sat under the new State, were chosen at the same election at which state officers were chosen. This body met for the first time on June 20, 1863, in the Linsly Institute in Wheeling. There were present twenty members of the Senate, and fifty-one members of the House of Delegates. John M. Phelps of Mason County, was chosen President of the Senate and Spicer Patrick of Kanawha County, Speaker of the House. Of the seventy-one members forty-eight were native Virginians; three were born in Maryland; and not one of the

remaining twenty was born south of the Mason and Dixon line. Thirty-three were farmers; six only were lawyers; and almost every profession and occupation had its representative among the remainder.

4. The First Supreme Court of Appeals.-The supreme judicial power was entrusted to three able lawyers of mature years, who were nominated at the Parkersburg convention, and elected at the May election without opposition These were Ralph L. Berkshire of Monongalia, William A Harrison of Harrison, and James H. Brown of Kanawha.

5. Other State and County Officers-At the May election (1863) Judges of the circuit court were elected in nine out of the ten circuits, and county officers were chosen in every county in the State except those that were still occupied by the Confederate forces.

6. The Beginning of the New State.-When the 20 day of June, 1863, arrived, the day set by the President's proclamation for the new State to be admitted into the Union and begin its career as one of the component States of the Federal Union, it was equipped with a full complement of officerslegislative, executive, and judicial-for putting into operation the machinery of state government. A New Dominion rose west of the Alleghanies, with a population, it is true, less than 400,000, but destined by reason of its own sources of wealth, during the next third of a century, to exceed 1,000,000; and the Old Dominion shrunk to its natural area, drained by the watershed of the Atlantic.

Senators and Representatives Chosen.-On the 4 day of August, 1863, the Legislature elected Waitman T. Willey of Monongalia, and Peter G. Van Winkle, of Wood as the first Senators from West Virginia in the Congress of the United States. Later the State was divided into three Congressional districts, and Jacob B. Blair of Wood, William G. Brown of Preston, and Kellian V. Whaley, of Mason, were elected to

represent their respective districts in the House of Representatives.

8. State of the Border During the War.-At the time that Governor Boreman entered upon the discharge of his duties as executive of the new State, the Civil War was running at high tide, and no crushing victory had yet been achieved by the Union arms: Gettysburg had not been fought, and Vicksburg had not surrendered. The southern tier of counties in West Virginia bordering on Virginia and Kentucky were beyond the Federal lines and under the control of the Confederacy, where they remained until near the close of the war. The people of these counties were forced to pay a "tithe in kind" of their products, in addition to taxes, into the treasury at Richmond, for the support of the Confederate Government, and besides were obliged to suffer frequent impressments and seizures at the hands of the military forces. Other counties near the border were occupied alternately by the Federal and Confederate forces. The border, over which the combatants surge back and fourth, always suffers most; it is there that the plunderer is safest and reaps his richest harvest; and it is there that lawlessness and crime hold sway, because the restraints of government can not be exercised, The Governor complained to the Government at Washington, that the State troops were unable to cope with the bands of guerrillas and marauders over so extensive a frontier. West Virginia was thereupon made a military department, and General Kelley was placed in command. The Governor called upon the people "to organize themselves into companies for their own protection and to capture or kill these outlaws," who were robbing, plundering and sometimes murdering, peaceable and noncombatant inhabitants, without regard for or fear of the law. "There is no law for them," continues Boreman, "but the law of force to be administered wherever and whenever they may be found." These are strong words; but they are significant of the intense state of disorder that prevailed along the

border, and in some parts of the State, during the feverperiod of the war. The activity of the military forces, particularly under General Kelley, somewhat improved the situation. The irregular bands were scattered and dispersed time and time again, only to reassemble; but they gradually became fewer and decreased in numbers, and the life and property of the private citizen became in a measure secure. Notwithstanding all this, irregular bands of marauders infested some portions of the State to the terror of the civil authorities, long after the Civil War had ended.

9. The Public Revenue.-Owing to the disturbing conditions just mentioned, the civil power of the State was feeble until well toward the establishment of peace. In 1864 the Governor reported in his message to the Legislature, that about one-half of the counties in the State had paid no revenue at all, and others had not paid in full.* The burden of supporting the state government fell upon a few counties, and the administration was embarrassed for means with which to meet the ordinary expenditures. In this state of affairs the construction of much needed public buildings could not be undertaken.

10. The Election of 1864.-The officers of the state administration were elected in 1864 practically without opposition: only a few scattering votes were cast against the regular nomiThere was no change in the administration, except that Granville D. Hall became Secretary of State in place of Boyer, and Joseph M. McWhorter became Auditor in place of Crane.

nees.

II. Law for the Forfeiture of Property.--The act was passed in 1863, providing for the "Forfeiture of property in this State belonging to the enemies thereof." This was of course

A committee of investigation reported to the Legislature that the counties of Braxton, Berkeley, Clay, Cabell, Fayette, Gilmer, Hampshire, Hardy, Lewis, Nicholas, Roane, Randolph, Tucker and Wayne, were without sheriffs, or other collectors of the revenue, "because of the danger incident thereto."