West Virginia in the American Civil War West Virginia in the American Civil War The U.S. state of West Virginia was formed out of western Virginia and added to the Union as a direct result of the American Civil War (see History of West Virginia), in which it became the only state to declare its independence from the Confederacy. In the summer of 1861, Union troops, which included a number of newly-formed Unionist "Virginia" regiments under General George McClellan, drove off Confederate troops under General Robert E. Lee. This essentially freed Unionists in the northwestern counties of Virginia to form a functioning government of their own as
Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps Amendment. The Thirteenth Amendment was sent to the states before Lincoln's assassination, the Fourteenth passed over Johnson's active opposition, the Fifteenth passed during Grant's administration. In literature the onset of the Civil War occasioned important considerations of nationalism, citizenship and the nature of the American republic. Radical social changes involving communications, women's rights, civil rights, states' rights and other issues had already been set in motion before the Civil War, and accelerated through it into succeeding historical eras. The Second Wave of Immigration reshaped American society in its diversity and urban numbers leading to an explosion of internal commerce and