The origins of West Virginia
Strange Maps has an interesting piece up today about where West Virginia came from (as a state): turns out it was all about the Civil War. The accompanying map shows the original proposed name for West Virginia, "Kanawha," as well as a proposed demarcation between Virginia and Maryland that trended along the western margin of the Blue Ridge physiographic province. If this boundary had come to pass, Virginia would have gotten the Valley & Ridge province, but Maryland would have retained the Blue Ridge, Piedmont and Coastal Plain.
Labels: blogs, blue ridge, coastal plain, history, maps, maryland, piedmont, valley and ridge, virginia, west virginia
1 Comments:
The seccesion of the western counties saved it, for the most part, from the bloody actions of the bushwackers(both Union and Confederate) that plagued the eastern parts of Kentucky and Tennessee. Those areas, until 63-64, were lawless in the extreme with every man, woman, and child having to chose sides, or face elimination by one or the other side. The regional strife carried on into the early part of the 20th Century(clan feuds) as old "debts" were repaid in kind. It was a vicious cycle of violent action and retaliation.
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