Henry A. Wise and the Virginia Secession Convention, February 13-April 17, 1861

Back in his undergraduate days at West Virginia University the writer of this paper was exposed to a course in West Virginia history. Having lived in Virginia and West Virginia all his life, he was naturally interested in the course of events that made the one state into two, and caused lifetime friends, even brothers, to take opposite sides in the conflict those events brought on. Even in this survey course, the romantic figure of Henry A. Wise especially drew him.

Later when searching out a subject for his thesis in graduate school, he had two things in mind: first, a subject that was interesting and could be written about in an interesting style, and second, a subject not yet adequately treated. The general subject of the division of old Virginia seemed to meet both requirements, and in particular the story of Wise and the Secession Convention struck him as a rare opportunity.

In short, therefore, this paper seeks to present the story of the Virginia Secession Convention and the part played by Henry Wise more completely and more accurately than anything done before, and without sacrificing accuracy to present it more attractively than anyone has before. No matter how authoritative, how precise, or how accurate, the writer may have been, unless the story is interesting he has failed.

Digitization of this thesis was made possible by a generous grant from the Jefferson Trust, 2015.

Thesis originally deposited on 2016-03-17 in version 1.28 of Libra. This thesis was migrated to Libra2 on 2017-03-23 16:36:22.