Virginia Secedes

Lesson 19: The Civil War part 2

News of Fort Sumter’s fall united the North. When Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to serve for three months, the response was overwhelming.

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Lincoln’s call for troops provoked a very different reaction in the states of the upper South. When Fort Sumter fell on April 13, the Virginia legislature took up a measure on secession. After little debate, the measure passed on April 17.

• In Richmond, Virginia, on the passage of the Secession Ordinance. A telegram to the New York Times states that the people celebrated the passage of the ordinance by placing a negro astride of the celebrated statue of Washington – Harpers Weekly (May 18, 1861)

However, the western counties of Virginia were antislavery, so they seceded from Virginia. They would be admitted into the Union as West Virginia in 1863.

The southern states and border states watched with interest to see what would happen, as the secession of Virginia was important because of the state's industrial value.

• Influential Marylanders, who had been supportive of secession ever since John C. Calhoun spoke of "nullification", agitated to join Virginia in leaving the Union.

Their discontent increased in the days afterward while Lincoln put out a call for volunteers to serve 90 days and end the insurrection; newly formed units were starting to transport themselves south.

Baltimore was a particularly secession-sympathetic city.

On April 19, the Union's Sixth Massachusetts Regiment was traveling south to Washington, D.C. through Baltimore. While they were waiting for a train they were attacked by a mob of pro secessionists and Southern sympathizers.

Four soldiers and twelve civilians were killed in the riot.

The Baltimore Riot of 1861 on April 19 would be the first blood shed during the Civil War.

In May, 1861, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina followed Virginia, bringing the number of Confederate states to 11.

The four remaining slave states – Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri – remained in the Union, although many of the citizens in those states fought for the Confederacy.