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
Arkansas in the American Civil War counties. The militia spent the next few weeks identifying and apprehending suspected Peace Society members throughout the mountains of north-central Arkansas. Finally, in mid-December, the regiment "escorted" their prisoners to Little Rock, where most of them were forced into Confederate service. After meeting the requirements of Reconstruction, including ratifying amendments to the US Constitution to abolish slavery and grant citizenship to former slaves, Arkansas's representatives were readmitted to Congress. The state was fully restored to the United States on June 22, 1868, becoming the second former Confederate state to gain readmission to the Union, but the first since Tennessee was