Tri-State Men Fill Ranks of Seventh West Virginia Infantry
Book details Seventh West Virgina Infantry
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WHEELING -- Belying its name, the Seventh West Virginia Infantry drew its Civil War membership from a tri-state area: western Virginia, eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania.
Authors David W. Mellott and Mark A. Snell spoke Tuesday at the Ohio County Public Library about their new book, "The Seventh West Virginia Infantry: An Embattled Union Regiment from the Civil War's Most Divided State."
The regiment's tri-state recruiting area was "literally a cauldron of conflict and division," said Mellott, a lawyer from Cleveland. "It was pretty staunchly Union, but that doesn't mean everything was fine."
For soldiers from this region, "the war was on their front doorsteps," he said.
Mellott said 60 percent of the Seventh's members were West Virginians, with the remaining 40 percent divided equally between men from Monroe County in Ohio and Greene County in Pennsylvania. Men from the latter two states mustered in because of "sympathy for their West Virginia neighbors," he said.
He noted Wheeling's important strategic position as "a dagger separating Ohio from Pennsylvania." The National Road and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad put the city at the confluence between the Ohio and Potomac rivers.
James Evans, a wealthy landowner from the Morgantown area, was the regiment's first colonel and recruited about 900 men, although his initial poster announced that he was "looking to recruit 1,010 brave men," Mellott said. Joseph Snider, a farmer and politician from Morgantown, assumed command after Evans became ill.
Thomas Morris, a distiller from Marshall County, was Company B's captain. His first lieutenant was William T. Head, a merchant from Marshall County. Valentine Smith, a merchant from Sisterville, served as Company C's captain.
Illness and battle wounds claimed many members of the Seventh, with only about 150 men getting through the war relatively unscathed, Mellott said. After the Battle of Gettysburg, the infantry was downsized to a battalion of four or five companies.
Three men from the three states became protagonists of Mellott's portion of the book: Maj. Jonathan Lockwood, a businessman from Moundsville; Lt. John Denny, a peddler from Clarington, and Pvt. Joshua Rice from Jollytown in Greene County.
Rice was captured at the Battle of the Wilderness and spent time in the infamous Andersonville prison. He made three escape attempts, succeeding on the third try by feigning sickness and being transported back to Union forces, Mellott said.
Two companies from the regiment went through Camp Carlile in Wheeling, Mellott said. Capt. Isaac Fisher from Monroe County arrived at the camp to recruit more men for Company D. Solomon Spangler, Company G's commander, advertised for men to join "the finest company on parade."
Pvt. Jesse Taylor, mortally wounded by shell fire, was the first man from Greene County and the first member of the Seventh West Virginia to die in combat. Taylor's home community was named Hero in his honor, Mellott said.
"Historical events don't occur in a vacuum," said Snell, a retired professor who lives in Gettysburg, citing the political foundation of the Seventh West Virginia. "Historical context is very important."
An 1830 revision of the Virginia constitution addressed increasing discord between eastern and western Virginia, but more sectional tension paved the way for another revision in 1851, Snell said. Virginia's secession from the Union in 1861 led to two conventions in Wheeling that resulted in the formation of the Restored Government of Virginia, with Wheeling as its capital.
However, half of the counties that would become West Virginia supported secession, resulting in "a veritable civil war within a civil war," Snell said. Militarily, western Virginia was divided almost equally between supporters of the Union and the Confederacy, he added.