John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion

[140] lumber, coal, iron, salt, petroleum, were their candidates for supremacy in trade. Their commerce followed their streams into the Ohio. The Mississippi Valley was a broader market than the Atlantic sea-coast. Their business reached out for St. Louis, St. Paul, and Denver, as well as Memphis and New Orleans.

The effort, therefore, of the tide-water slaveholding aristocrats to carry them into a cotton confederacy, met an instantaneous and almost unanimous protest. The proposition was hardly a subject for discussion. To secede from secession was the common wish and determination. The only question was how to put their negative into effective operation. Rapid popular organization followed; the Government at Washington was appealed to, and promised countenance and support; and on May 13th, delegates from twenty-five counties met at Wheeling to consult and devise further action whereby they might fully and finally repudiate the treasonable revolt of East Virginia.

Circumstances favored their design. Under President Lincoln's call, the large and populous State of Ohio, West Virginia's nearest neighbor, was organizing thirteen regiments of three months volunteers. This quota entitled her to a major-general; and to this important command Governor Dennison appointed a young officer of thorough West Point training and varied experience-Captain George B. McClellan. He was also a personal favorite of General Scott, who had such confidence in his ability that he soon (May 3d) placed him in command of the Military Department of the Ohio, created to include the three States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, with headquarters at Cincinnati, and to which West Virginia was not long after attached. The blockade of Washington, and other incidents, had served to keep Western quotas of troops on the Ohio line, and the