Read Online Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided by W Hunter Lesser - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: W Hunter Lesser
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pen—traits that would become his calling. “Nine in ten of us had never seen a mountain, nor a hill as high as a church spire, until we had crossed the Ohio River,” he later wrote. “In power upon the emotions nothing, I think, is comparable to a first sight of mountains.” 190
A mustachioed, pipe-smoking youth in his mid-twenties named William B. Fletcher was more captivated by the ladies. Schooled at Harvard and the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, Fletcher had been outmaneuvered for a medical appointment in the Sixth Indiana Infantry. Unable to find another vacancy, he had reluctantly claimed the post of fife major in that regiment. Dr. Fletcher had no gift for music, but more compelling duty was to come his way.
As the train bearing Fletcher shuddered to a halt near Grafton, young women scurried forward. Wearing pretty white dresses and hand-sewn aprons bearing the Stars and Stripes, they presented bouquets of flowers to soldiers aboard the cars. Fletcher spied a black-haired beauty and called for her apron. Beaming to the flirtatious doctor, she handed over a “very tastefully made up” creation. The design was unique. A Union shield was prominent, and in the center was a single large star—cut neatly in two. One half was labeled “Eastern Va.,” the other, “Western Va.” 191
On June 11—eight days after the “Philippi Races”—Virginia Unionists gathered in a second convention at Wheeling to debate the rending of that star. Attending were more than one hundred representatives from thirty-two western counties. Delegates from the eastern Virginia counties of Alexandria and Fairfax had also crossed the mountains to take part. Nearly one third of Virginia's voting population was represented. Duly-elected members of the General Assembly were seated if known to be loyal to the Union, others were chosen by petition. 192
News-hawk Whitelaw Reid canvassed the delegates as they arrived. “There appears to be no doubt among the leaders,” he wrote, “that the Convention will take measures for the immediate establishment of a Provisional State Government that will at once form the nucleus around which the Union men of Virginia may rally. It seems scarcely probable that anything beyond this movement can be accomplished by the Convention, though the feeling for the separation of Western Virginia from the Eastern portion and the formation of a new State is undeniably very strong and constantly strengthening.” 193
The convention was held in open defiance of the Richmond authorities. Officials in many counties sought to repress it. Each delegate took an oath to support the Constitution of the United States—“anything in the Ordinances of the Convention which assembled in Richmond, on the 13th of February last, to the contrary notwithstanding.”
Parkersburg attorney Arthur I. Boreman was chosen as president. However, John Carlile and Frank Pierpont were the linchpins of the second Wheeling convention. Waitman Willey, the law- and-order Unionist from Morgantown, was conspicuously absent; both his father and stepmother were seriously ill. 194
The flamboyant Carlile, chair of the powerful committee on business, offered resolutions of thanks to General McClellan for rescuing the people of Western Virginia and to Colonel Kelley, “Western Virginia's loyal son,” for his service and sacrifice. Carlile's passion for a “New Virginia” had not cooled, but Article IV,Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution loomed as a stumbling block: “no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State…without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of Congress.” The Richmond legislature would never consent to a division of the state; therefore the plan outlined by Frank Pierpont at the First Wheeling Convention guided the delegates.
A new Virginia government would be created. All state offices would be declared vacant,
A mustachioed, pipe-smoking youth in his mid-twenties named William B. Fletcher was more captivated by the ladies. Schooled at Harvard and the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, Fletcher had been outmaneuvered for a medical appointment in the Sixth Indiana Infantry. Unable to find another vacancy, he had reluctantly claimed the post of fife major in that regiment. Dr. Fletcher had no gift for music, but more compelling duty was to come his way.
As the train bearing Fletcher shuddered to a halt near Grafton, young women scurried forward. Wearing pretty white dresses and hand-sewn aprons bearing the Stars and Stripes, they presented bouquets of flowers to soldiers aboard the cars. Fletcher spied a black-haired beauty and called for her apron. Beaming to the flirtatious doctor, she handed over a “very tastefully made up” creation. The design was unique. A Union shield was prominent, and in the center was a single large star—cut neatly in two. One half was labeled “Eastern Va.,” the other, “Western Va.” 191
On June 11—eight days after the “Philippi Races”—Virginia Unionists gathered in a second convention at Wheeling to debate the rending of that star. Attending were more than one hundred representatives from thirty-two western counties. Delegates from the eastern Virginia counties of Alexandria and Fairfax had also crossed the mountains to take part. Nearly one third of Virginia's voting population was represented. Duly-elected members of the General Assembly were seated if known to be loyal to the Union, others were chosen by petition. 192
News-hawk Whitelaw Reid canvassed the delegates as they arrived. “There appears to be no doubt among the leaders,” he wrote, “that the Convention will take measures for the immediate establishment of a Provisional State Government that will at once form the nucleus around which the Union men of Virginia may rally. It seems scarcely probable that anything beyond this movement can be accomplished by the Convention, though the feeling for the separation of Western Virginia from the Eastern portion and the formation of a new State is undeniably very strong and constantly strengthening.” 193
The convention was held in open defiance of the Richmond authorities. Officials in many counties sought to repress it. Each delegate took an oath to support the Constitution of the United States—“anything in the Ordinances of the Convention which assembled in Richmond, on the 13th of February last, to the contrary notwithstanding.”
Parkersburg attorney Arthur I. Boreman was chosen as president. However, John Carlile and Frank Pierpont were the linchpins of the second Wheeling convention. Waitman Willey, the law- and-order Unionist from Morgantown, was conspicuously absent; both his father and stepmother were seriously ill. 194
The flamboyant Carlile, chair of the powerful committee on business, offered resolutions of thanks to General McClellan for rescuing the people of Western Virginia and to Colonel Kelley, “Western Virginia's loyal son,” for his service and sacrifice. Carlile's passion for a “New Virginia” had not cooled, but Article IV,Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution loomed as a stumbling block: “no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State…without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of Congress.” The Richmond legislature would never consent to a division of the state; therefore the plan outlined by Frank Pierpont at the First Wheeling Convention guided the delegates.
A new Virginia government would be created. All state offices would be declared vacant,
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