Talk:Virginia in the American Civil War

Name of the War

While there is certainly no reason to not note (as the article does) that some folks use the term War Between the States, the Civil War is the most commonly used term and is the title (actually American Civil War) of the wikipedia article on the subject. There is no reason why this article should deviate from standard practice and use a different name in a section heading simply because it is about a southern state's role in that war. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 17:42, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Which is it ... American Civil War or Civil War? So much for your baloney claim of a "standard" practice. We already went through this two years ago. When you hop in your automobile and drive into the Commonwealth of Virginia, you won't see a single highway sign directing you to any "Battle of Bull Run". Such signage does not exist. Rather, the federal highway brown-signs call it by the Manassas name, and it's called Manassas Battlefield. Articles on locales should use the verbage/lingo used in that locale, another Wiki "standard" that you are unfamiliar with. Why don't you go check the Ohio civil war pages, and see what work is needed there? This topic on wiki needs help, and your edits are not helpful, rather, they annoy people unnecessarily and waste time.Grayghost01 (talk) 19:02, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

• Please try to stay on topic. The American Civil War is not a topic particular to any US locale --JimWae (talk) 19:10, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Jim, check the page your editing. This topic is VIRGINIA in the American Civil War, and I'm in the Virginia task force. thanks.Grayghost01 (talk) 19:34, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Use of www.dictionary.com may be helpful for future edits

at [www.dictionary.com]:

readmit - To admit again; to give entrance or access to again. rejoin - to join together again; reunite.

admit defined as "entry", so readmit is synonymous with "reentry".

join is "bind", so rejoin is synonymous with "rebind".

Thus, I basically said Virginia "rejoined" or "rebinded". You say that is not NPOV, and your "readmit" or "reentry" is, because it supposedly doesn't imply that Virginia left. However, Virginia MUST have left if they need to be admitted again, or enter again. Whereas I used rejoined to infer the more sublety of binding again, that is to rebind. Thus the word I used means what you say you want it to mean, but you changed it to a word that you accused me of meaning.

Given the lack of fluency demonstrated, here, in the English language ... please consult some dictionaries before you embark upon future harrassment and provoking edits. And if you want the sentence to mean rebind vice reenter, you'll need to go undo your own goofy edit.

Finally, you might want to check the U.S. Congressional language. You seem to be unaware that acts of Congress were involved approving a NEW constitution for Virginia, as well as other things, so your goofy edit that congressmen were merely readmitted to the Congress is completely out-to-lunch compared to what actually happened historically. This historical fact is required learning for school kids in Virginia's Standards of Learning. It helps to have grown up here, because the locales know the history a little better than those from New York.

Please quit editing in your self-made Pseudo-History into the wiki articles, and go do some research first.

Thank you. Grayghost01 (talk) 02:09, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

• The above may or may not be one correct interpretation of the word "reunion". (I may read the rest of the shout above later). However, "Virginia must have left..." is way off-point.
• Many states have had several new Constitutions. These states neither rejoin nor are they re-admitted with each version.
• There was a period when CSA representatives "withdrew from" and also were not "admitted to" Congress. VA was readmitted to Congress after a period of not being admitted. Being readmitted to Congress is not the same as being readmitted to the USA.
• A perfectly acceptable understanding of "rejoin" is that it means joining together again after a period of not being joined together. Good editors are more than accurate (no assertion of accuracy above intended). Good editors know that the meanings of words can be shaded by the context they are in. Good editors know they need to choose their words carefully so their words are not easily misconstrued. Saying VA "rejoined" the USA is too easily construed as meaning there was a time they were NOT a part of the USA. Whether Southerners "rejoined" in spirit with "Northerners" became an issue for quite some time. However, saying a state rejoined a country implies (or at the very least strongly suggests) that for a time the state was not part of the country -- That is the NPOV issue. Please do not direct any future harangues my way. --JimWae (talk) 02:43, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Jim, look. The issue is not what Virginia did or didn't do, or what was legal or not legal, or what was an issue or not an issue. The point is that your editing out "rejoin" for "readmit" is petty, pointless, and a complete waste of time. Per your buddy North Shoreman, secession was declared illegal (of course) after the fact. Thus "restore" would be the proper word, eh? What's clear is the two of you have cut swiss cheese holes in what used to be reasonably good and readable articles. The Confederate States of America article is so bad ... it's terrible, thank to you two, who have made it unbearable to read. My eyes water. It's more of a blog on the issue of Slavery than anything else. Please .... I beg you two ... go open up blog sites and blog away. You're ruining the wiki articles. Grayghost01 (talk) 03:01, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

• We've been through this already. "Go away" is not the wiki-way. It is insertions of Confederate POV by you & others that have become the focus of editors to the article. Several points have been raised against many of your edits which you have not answered. We can only hope the reason for that is that we have persuaded you of a few things & that you have abandoned inserting some of your previous biases (such as that moving US troops through a US state is an invasion of that state.) I and others have been at this NPOV encyclopedia business for several years now. It is really quite remarkable & will probably lead to some improvements in the academic world too--JimWae (talk) 03:17, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Lack of Balance

Incredibly, the article did not mention Fort Sumter and had only one mention of slaves or slavery. I have added information that partially remedies these deficiencies. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 12:51, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Do not add more trifling minutiae to the Virginia article. This article is about Virginia in the Civil War. Treatment is given regarding Ft. Sumter in the South Carolina article.Grayghost01 (talk) 04:10, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

But, as the material you attempted to censor out shows, the attack on Fort Sumter was very relevant to Virginians. Also, as any number of reliable sources show, slavery was very important to the deliberations of the Virginia convention -- if you consider this "trifling minutiae" then perhaps I need to add additional sourced material to make this point. Is that what you are asking me to do?

You might also want to explain why you want to censor out Lincoln's actual words in calling out the militia and why you want to hide the well known fact that Virginia took aggressive actions against United States facilities even before the final vote for secession by the people. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 11:25, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Grayghost -- You failed to respond to the above and instead simply reverted. To further aggravate the situation you accused me of vandalism even though this is entirely a content issue (or apparently on your part an ownership issue). You have tried to eliminate discussion by, first, a bgus Conflict of Interest complaint and then by attempting to have the page protected from editing -- both attempts failed. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 02:27, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I want to be very clear. This page is about Virginia. It is not about Lincoln, Fort Sumter, the definition of invade, Lincoln's speeches, blogging on slavery, etc. I will ensure this page stays on topic. Furthermore, I have a revamped version of this in work, which will roll out later anyway, so as we have done in the past, we set certain articles aside to await the revamp. Please go put your materials on some page about Secession, or reasons for secession. You are completely off-topic. If you persist in what you are doing, I will persist even more strongly to claim you are intentionally being vandalistic. Vandalism, in your form, may be subtle and not spray paint ... but it has the same intent. You are purely diversionary, and have no true interest in what the history of Virginia is, nor do you care anything about the state and it's various wiki-pages on its history. Your editing track record confirms that perspective. Please refer to the ACW task force page and find some actual historical work to do. Meanwhile, we don't need 1,000 references to Lincoln and Fort Sumter on every ACW page in existence.Grayghost01 (talk) 02:39, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I also have a vision on this article that I developed when I added the section on West Virginia to the article Border states (Civil War). It is a shame that you have decided to edit war over this rather than try to figure out how opposing views can be incorporated into an article. You are the one who introduced Lincoln into this article -- all I am doing is making an accurate and sourced statement about what he actually said. Fort Sumter is relevant because, as the sources provided show, it was relevant to Virginians. Slavery is relevant to the article because, as the sources provided show, it was relevant to Virginians.

At this point the sections of the article on the background and he secession convention both need expansion and I intend to do that in the near future. I will be using, among other possible works, the Ayers' work already cited, Davis and Robertson's "Virginia at War 1861", and Link's "Roots of Secession: Slavery and Politics in Antebellum Virginia".

I suggest you cut out the frivolous charges of vandalism leveled against me and others and start making efforts to cooperate. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 03:00, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone still think the article lacks balance at this point? It's very incomplete, and that seems like the larger problem now.Jimmuldrow (talk) 17:50, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I believe that until the material deleted by Grayghost is restored, in some form, that the section is still unbalanced. I intend to do that in the near future. As far as the rest of the article, it certainly does need to be expanded. Certainly the economy, the society, and politics should be a major focus since the battles and military leaders are addressed adequately elsewhere. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 14:45, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

This article is in extremely bad shape, clearly unbalanced, and as you point out incomplete. I think the various other editors which are fixated on explaining why they think the ACW was started should take most of that material and put it into one of the half dozen or so redundant articles on secession. I think THIS page should stick to an encyclopedic-like prose of what history happened in Virginia as part of the Civil War. It should cover the early mobilizations and prep for war, the battles that occurred, what leaders it had, what government action happened, natural resources used, and etc. It should not be yet ANOTHER article for material on South Carolina, Fort Sumter, Abraham Lincoln, etc. Also, old news articles on what people on the street were doing on certain days is interesting history ... but far too detailed for this article. Likewise, adding published opinions on what Virginia politicians intended to do (but did not accomplish) is too off-topic. Please see Winchester in the American Civil War for an example of a much better topical outline, better use of images, interesting points, and better focus on staying in-topic to the locale. In this article, I finally had to add the actual letters of Governor Letcher and Sec. Cameron in order to refute the POV material being added, skewing the actual history of what happened in Virginia relative to the war.Grayghost01 (talk) 05:36, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Despite your claims, the fact is that historians of the era, WHEN WRITING ABOUT VIRGINIA, do find it both necessary and appropriate to discuss “South Carolina, Fort Sumter, Abraham Lincoln, etc.” You yourself added the John Brown material -- how is something that happened in 1859 relevant but events in February through April of 1861 are not? The additions of the Cameron and Letcher letters are perfectly consistent with the additions that I and others have made -- Cameron doesn’t discuss “invasion” and Letcher doesn’t claim that the call for troops was the sole reason why Virginia seceded. The plain (and apparently uncomfortable) facts are that unionists and secessionists alike were demanding protections for slavery -- far from being a sudden shift in position, the attack on Fort Sumter cames as Virginia and the US were already moving apart. Why do you want to censor out legitimate historical material relevant to Virginia and the Civil War?

As far as anything being “too detailed”, the article is still a stubb. The material on the reaction of the people of Virginia to Fort Sumter is relevant and ill be added back as will additional information on the convention. If at some point the article is expanded it very well may be appropriate to follow WP:Summary Style and create spinoff articles -- we’re certainly not at that place yet.

Bottom line -- I’m adding (and will continue to add) relevant material from reliable sources. That’s pretty much what wikipedia is all about. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 14:45, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

My bottom line. I will cut your material and diatribe on Lincoln, and remove it to one of the many pages on Lincoln. Then perhaps we can add see main article on Lincoln to every page in this series to keep the outline and flow. Then editors in the future can be left scratching their heads over why a see-main is here. Then you can explain the unending argument you are making about blogging on Lincoln here.Grayghost01 (talk) 00:24, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a Declaration of Edit War to me. Rather than (1) showing why leading historians such as McPherson, Ayers, Robertson, Furgurson, etc are wrong to include Lincoln in their discussions of secession and (2) showing there are actually reliable sources that say Lincoln had nothing to do with Virginia secession, you are threatening to revert all mentions of Lincoln. Bad idea. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 11:45, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

While a complete list of causes of the war would be excessive, leaving out causes would be equally excessive. It would be wrong to mention war and leave out the reason why. The immediate causes (the split in the Democratic Party over the slavery issue, the election of Lincoln and the Fort Sumter crisis) need to be mentioned in order for the rest to make any sense.Jimmuldrow (talk) 18:40, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

The edit war was commenced by the gentleman from Ohio, who first set to dicing the Winchester article, then the Train Raid article, the CSA article, then this article. I rid the edit-war by chopping all the front end out of the first two, so that the main article itself could be saved. While the background is helpful, it is not necessary. Since the other warring editor wants dozens or hundreds of ACW articles to have his self-composed same front end, I am strongly suggesting that he go edit one of the many Lincoln or secession pages. Then all these other articles can do a "see main" or something like that. As far as Virginia is concerned, this article needs to document what Virginia did. I do not accept the theory that extensive explanation of Lincoln is necessary here, when very redundant to the heavy-dose of other Lincoln pages. Nor do we need to talk about the democratic party, the slavery issue and on and on and on. This is the Virginia page. If there is a SPECIFIC point about slavery in Virginia, or about the Dem Party in Virginia, then fine. If there is a specific letter to/from the Lincoln administration from Virginia, then fine. But we don't need the emancipation proclamation, and so forth here.Grayghost01 (talk) 02:57, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Like three other upper Southern slave states, Virginia seceded directly after and in response to the Fort Sumter crisis. No Fort Sumter, no Virginia in the Civil War. No election of Lincoln, no Fort Sumter crisis. And why did Virginia side with other slave states when forced to choose sides? What did they have in common? Slavery, perhaps?71.225.223.174 (talk) 18:23, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Cooperation

If the two of you continue in your present course, I will continue to report your editing tactics. The two of you had never touched this page before, and only came here to edit after creating disputes over trivial matters, such as when Arizona seceded (failing to read even the materials further down on that page and five others). I predict you have no intent to discuss or cooperate. As such, we shall leave the article the way it was, prior to your placement of trivia on the page. So, if you want to discuss things, begin here. Another reversion will not be seen as an attempt to discuss anything.Grayghost01 (talk) 03:10, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

• Discussion began long ago. Where were you? Obviously the call to arms had great impact - but so did Sumter. It is not up to wp editors to say which was "the key". I believe you have removed nearly all support for the impact of Sumter & added support only for the call. That material needs to be restored --JimWae (talk) 07:03, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
• the article mentioned both Sumter and the call from its very inception in 2006 UNTIL you came along on 2008-Aug-23 and removed Sumter. You are the one that is making it difficult to have a balanced article--JimWae (talk) 07:11, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
• not that it really matters, but I touched this article long before that --JimWae (talk) 07:14, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
• report "our tactics" as much as you wish - let more people see just how much you are willing to abuse the process --JimWae (talk) 07:17, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I have also had Virginia related issues on my radar for some time. I've made nine edits to Virginia between 2-27-2007 and 9-20-2007, one edit to History of Virginia, five to Stonewall Jackson, and 55 to Robert E. Lee -- most of these edits were the result of patrolling for vandalism off my watchlist.

Your (Jim's) recent edits to this article do make sense and are a fine compromise as far as they go. I would even agree to leave some of the material out regarding the reaction to Fort Sumter if this were accepted as a final resolution. However the real problem with the article comes with the very brief description of the events in the Virginia Convention leading up to April 12. The make up of the convention was not between just two factions -- secessionists and unionists -- but included a third group, conditional unionists. This was the single largest group -- Robertson divides the delegates as elected originally into 30 secessionists, 30 unionists, and 92 moderates (conditional unionists). Ayers finds a similar split and shows that in the presidential election the delegates voted 37 for Douglas, 30 for Breckinridge, and 87 for Bell.

Rather than there being “an immediate change in the current of public opinion in Virginia”, Robertson writes that even in March there was “a growing, uncontrollable attitude for war ... weeping through the state. Militia units were organizing from the mountains to the Tidewater. Newspapers in Richmond and elsewhere maintained a steady heat ... .”

The convention early on had appointed a Federal Relations Committee to draft proposals which would keep Virginia in the Union. These proposals were debated between the middle of March and April 12 when the last of the fourteen proposals was approved. The April 4 vote not to secede occurred during this debate -- it didn’t result in a closure of the debate or the convention but simply allowed the convention to continue with the debate on the demands to be made in order to prevent secession at a later date. These proposals, according to Robertson, “affirmed the institution of slavery and upheld the sovereignty of states’ rights.” By simply restating the ideas regarding slavery in the territories which had already failed to reach a successful compromise when presented by both the Crittenden Committee and the Washington Conference, there was no reason to expect that a compromise could be reached now. In any event, the attack on Fort Sumter and the call for troops effectively ended the debate. The importance of slavery to most of the delegates needs to be incorporated into the article -- Unionist John Baldwin stated this very early when he said, “there is but one single subject of complaint against the government under which we live; a complaint made by the whole South, and that is the subject of slavery.” Robertson writes that “the term unionist had an altogether different meaning in Virginia at the time” and speaks of two Richmond moderates who would give up the Union “if the federal government did not guarantee protection of slavery everywhere.”

Nothing is as simple as Grayghost wants to make it appear. A description of the conditional unionists and their goals is essential to the article Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 11:31, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Prewar Tensions

I have expanded this section to add reaction to the single greatest immediate source of tension -- the election of Abraham Lincoln (which was not mentioned at all). I also provided details on the nature of the split in the Democratic Party since without this split there never would have been a convention in Richmond. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 22:27, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Please, I urge you, to remove your contributions to pages on Lincoln, Secession, American Civil War, and put in reference links to the "main" article. If you carry forth with your particular method, then every single page on a Southern state would need the IDENTICAL intro. Thus we would have a dozen or so of these LINCOLN-discussions that you are so hot and heavy to ram into these pages. Rather ... allow all the Southern state pages to reference to a Lincoln and the War article for further information. In fact, such page exists, and you have ignored (or possibly overlooked) when I have pointed this out several times. Your methodology makes for a poor framework from an encyclopedia perspective, in that the same information is required to be duplicated over and over again. Thus, for example, I REMOVED such front-end material from the Great Train Raid of 1861, because a quotation of Lincoln's documents is just simply out of place on an article which MERELY needs to cover the raid and basic background leading up to that. Please do some reading on Wiki formats, article construction, layouts, and other guides to get further understanding on this. And finally, again, I urge you to consider your own Conflict-of-Interest as you continuously trump-edit out a local Virginia historian, while you reside up on the lovely shores of Northern Ohio. It's not that you can't have contribution on Virginia, if needed ... but sir ... why are you doing this? I have the view that your edits bring down the quality of this page, just as they have brought down the quality on other high-level ACW topics. Sincerely, Grayghost01 (talk) 03:20, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

The election of Lincoln was a significant event to Virginians, and the Lincoln admistration was a significant topic of debate at the Virginia convention. When I expand the convention section it will be necessary to add more references -- especially the direct contacts with Lincoln by representatives from the convention and by unionists hoping to reach an agreement. There is little in your above response that deals with either the current or future content of this article. Perhaps you should drop all the personal invective, stop your crusade against fellow editors, and start discussing specfic content and specific sources. I don't need to justify my interest in this subject to you or anybody else. What should be apparent to anybody is that I am quite familiar with the subject and have not added anything here, or anywhere else on wikipedia, that is not supported by solid, reliable sources. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 11:52, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. Many historical Virginia texts discuss the reaction of the state government to the call for troops and center on this event, and the letter and reaction from not only the governor, but from the convention. Certainly the battle at Fort Sumter was a key event for everyone and the whole country, but that can be covered adequately elsewhere. This article is about Virginia in the Civil War, not South Carolinal. You started this whole affair with a blatant and false accusation about NPOV because of the word "invade" being in an article in material I likely composed. That is personal invective. When I pointed out the extensive use of this word in wiki alone (ex: Invasion of Normandy you did not concede the point, but kept on attacking. Finally, adding "solid, reliable sources" is not the sole end of a good wiki article. The material must be germane, in context, and true in what it says. Finally, it seems to me in reviewing your contributions and areas you edit, that you are on a crusade of inserting or over-citing your views of Lincoln and what you consider to be the causes of the ACW. Your sudden editing interest on this article is an example.Grayghost01 (talk) 22:31, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Per your usual, high on personal invective and low on substance. I and others have addressed the use of "invasion" on numerous occasions. You have failed to address the specific explanations presented to you, preferring to avoid (in fact trying to censor out) what Lincoln actually called for. As for the material added being "germane, in context, and true", this is exactly what it is. Since I am using very easily accessible works that you, as an allegedly highly interested party in Virginia and the Civil War, should already be familiar with, why don't you demonstrate where ANYTHING I've written fails to meet those standards. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 14:55, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

This article is not Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. Nor is it Abraham Lincoln on slavery. Nor Abraham Lincoln. Nor is it Cultural depictions of Abraham Lincoln. Neither is it Abraham Lincoln and religion. But it sure seems to be Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. Let's assume I am low on substance, and you have great substance. Your substance has ZERO to do with this article. What you've written fails to meet the standards of what qualifies to be in an already full-length article on WINCHESTER in the American Civil War. Nor does this page have the offensive-to-you words like "invasion", the same word contained in scholarly articles like Invasion of Normandy. So I think should move your POV and this talk section to a Lincoln page, perhaps the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum page or Sexuality of Abraham Lincoln. That's my advice. And it is you, sir, that has failed to address any specifics. Again ... take the Lincoln discussion elsewhere.Grayghost01 (talk) 23:50, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

So, are you saying the article does NOT need to mention Lincoln's call for arms THREE times? Btw, the Evans ref is very incomplete--JimWae (talk) 00:03, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Secession Convention

I added a paragraph to the start of this section to start fleshing out some details. The existing article was over-simplistic in its failure to demonstrate the shifting opinions over the course of the debate --there was much more to it than on April 4 they voted against secession and then on April 17 they voted for it. The material I just added takes the debate to the early part of March. The next paragraph or two that needs to be added will describe the report of the Federal Relations Committee and its fourteen proposals -- proposals that were generally understood to be requirements in order for Virginia to remain in the Union.

The decisions made by Virginia in early 1861 were some of the most significant in shaping the way the war would play out. The statement in the existing article that"The strong pro-Union sentiment in Virginia began to alter after the April 12..." is very misleading -- the unionist sentiment expressed in the original election of delegates had been eroding for about seven weeks before the attack on Fort Sumter. The material is relevant, and this article is the most logical place to locate this material. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 22:24, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

A second paragraph has been added along with a sidebar that summarizes the conditions approved by the convention in order to avoid secession. It seems clear from this material that if the CSA had not opened the shooting war there would still have been a conflict with the Lincoln administration over these proposals further on down the line. Still need to make the next paragraph consistent with the first two -- this remains a work in process. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 12:05, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Lead, disambiguation

Thanks, Scott Mingus, for restoring the lead; I was about to post a message that this article needs a lead! Would somebody please disambiguate the link in this part "The first being the Battle of Manassas and the last being..." in the 2nd paragraph of the section [[Virginia in the American Civil War#Virginia during the war|Virginia during the war; the link from "Battle of Manassas" here goes to a disambiguation page; please change it to go directly to the page for the appropriate battle (the first battle of Bull Run?) Thanks. Actually, since that disambiguation page has only two links on it, I suggest making it a redirect to one of the two battles, and just having a hatnote at the top of that page saying "Battle of Bull Run and Battle of Manassas redirect here. For the second battle, see Second Battle of Bull Run." In that way, the article itself acts as a disambiguation page. I think it's normal to do it that way when there are only two items, so that about half the readers will get to the page they want immediately rather than getting to a disambiguation page first. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:31, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

The parentheticals (known as "Bull Run" in Northern naming convention) are entirely unnecessary. The links go to the correct pages. It is typical in wiki for renaming like that to fit the context. In this case, both Virginia and the Federal Govt call these "Manassas" and "Manassas Battlefield", etc. All highway signs, maps, tourist brochures, etc use that naming convention. Any foreigner wanting to tour, if they read Wiki, would easily become confused. Overall this article is in very bad shape, and has gotten worse, likely since I made a minor edit of some sort, attracting a barrage of Lincoln and Fort Sumter material to be inserted in a way to hype the cause of the war as a whole. When I tried to balance this quasi-vandalism with the actual and very historical letter exchange between Governor Letcher and Sec. Cameron .... yet another obscure quote of some editor was inserted in the ugly brown box on the right. The proposals adopted by the Virginia convention, which went nowhere, do not rise to the level of detail this article should be at ... much less someone's opinions on thoses proposals. This article should stick to what actually happened in the history of Virginia in the Civil War. It's already noted that Virginians attempted the peace conference, and that's basically enough. If there is a separate article JUST on the Virginia secession convention, that extraneous material might, then, be appropriate.

The relevance of the proposals approved by the convention are clear. While Grayghost chose to totally ignore the significance of slavery to ALL Virginians and claim that the Unionists dominated the convention right up to April 17, the facts show that slavery was significant (in fact it dominated the debate) and the Unonists had very clear demands, beyond simply non-coercion, if Lincoln wanted them to remain Unionists. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 11:34, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

9-17-2008 Edits -- restoring balance

Grayghost has presented information suggesting that it was solely the calling of the militia that led to secession. I have added (1) sourced material documenting the spontaneous support generated by the attack on Fort Sumter and (2) quote from Ayers balancing the significance of perceived federal coercion with Virginia's concern for slavery (as evidenced by the resolutions adopted by the convention. The Ayers' quote is required in order to present an alternative POV to the Evans' quote that Letcher's "reply to that call wrought an immediate change in the current of public opinion in Virginia." In fact, public opinon had been changing ever since the selection of delegates, and I have provided sourced material to reflect that change over time.

Rather than simply deleting competing POVs, as Grayghost has done and has threatened to do again, I am simply adding material while leaving his material in place. More work is still needed to document the convention debate and I will be adding that shortly. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 11:28, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I have also added accounts of Lincoln's meetings with Baldwin and the conventions official delegation. These meetings are widely covered in reliable secondary sources on the subject (Virginia and secession) so the issue of relevance is not at issue. The meetings emphasize the significance of Fort Sumter and Lincoln's intentions to Virginians. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 14:08, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. This is an article, which must cover a large span of time and topics. What you are proposing is diving down to a micro-level of historical detail which will totally lose the reader. I applaud your efforts if you create a special page for all that, which would be incredibly lengthy such as the Secession of Virginia, or something like that. Generally, however, I don't think your contribution-proposal is being made in the true spirit of Wiki, because I notice that you heavily focus on this topic area, and cause controversy and problems elsewhere. In contrast, I focus on historial regional work. I honestly implore you to take a break for awhile on Lincoln-izing not only this Virginia page, but the other more detailed virginia-oriented pages. E.g. the Great Train Raid of 1861 simply did not need your contribution of the text of what Lincoln said in his call for troops. That article is about a train raid. The original background material was there to show that the raid was conducted in the interim period between secession-vote and secession-ratification, and that the raid was conducted immediately and intentionally on the secession-ratification. Now, due to your edit-warring, the reader will simply read about the raid and nothing else, and must figure out the context and background on his own. I.e. you have, by edit-warring, ruined an aspect of the article for now, until perhaps you leave it alone. I ask you, as I have before, to go see the Task Force list of what work, images, articles need doing and help with some of those suggested areas, vice cruising ACW pages to constantly edit-in your POV of Lincoln and the cause of the war.Grayghost01 (talk) 03:07, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

LOL. In fact, I haven't made a single edit (yet) to Great Train Raid of 1861, have I?. I did add the following on the discussion page:

Historian James I. Robertson Jr. is probably today's leading scholar on the life and career of Stonewall Jackson. In his major biography of Jackson he writes on page 229 concerning the material that makes up most of this article, "Delightful as the story is, it is totally fictional." He demonstrates that the entire story arose out of a post war article by John Imboden. I will be adding this material as a necessary POV in the near future.

And I did add the following to the Winchester in the American Civil War discussion page:

This article is badly POV. You want to talk about Lincoln's alleged intention to invade, but then try to censor out what his message actually called for. You talk about Winchester not being "particularly fond of secession from the Union" (which is undobtedly true), but neglect to discuss the rest of the story and the conditional nature of their committment to the Union. Why do you leave out the December 14 meeting of Frederick County residents in Winchester, led by unionist Robert Y. Young that passed a resolution accusing the North of having launched an "insane war" against southern institutions, identifying slavery as "perfectly consistent with civiliztion, humanity, and piety", vowing that Virginia would not "tamely submit" to challenges to its rights, and calling for full enforcement of the fugitive slave laws. (source -- Link "Roots of Secession").

Also omitted from "your" article are any references to the hardships placed on Winchester and environs by the CSA. A small sample of quotes from Berkey's contribution to Gallagher's "The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862":

“As the contending arms squared off in the Valley, civilians learned one of the first lessons of the Shenandoah campaign: proximity to either army inevitably led to property loss.” “Confederates also did their share of property damage.” John Casler of the Stonewall Brigade on chickens, “We would not steal them! No! Who ever heard of a soldier stealing? But simply take them.” (pg. 88)

“David M. Barton of Frederick County noted that Confederate stragglers caused many problems for local noncombatants. ‘They are more troublesome than the Yankees,’ he said, ‘because they go anywhere without fear.’” (pg. 88-89)

“Civilians especially felt the pinch of military necessity as Jackson hurried back up the valley in late May and early June. From Front Royal, Maj. John A. Harman, Jackson’s profane quartermaster, impressed horses and wagons throughout the upper Valley in order to move captured Federal stores to a safe place. Confederate officers were directed to collect “everything that can be made available to haul stores” and send them to Front Royal. In a brief time Harman had trains of civilian wagons carrying captured supplies to Winchester and Front Royal.” (pg. 89)

I haven't started to add this material YET, but look for my assistance on that article in the near future. No articles on wikipedia belong to your personal fifedom. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 12:53, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

The list of Civil War figures from Virginia should include those who fought for the United States:

George Thomas, Union Major General Elizabeth van Lew, Union spy

In general, this article does not mention any of the many thousands of Virginians who loyally served the United States during this struggle. One of my own ancestors, Jesse Weakley from Stanley, Virginia (in Page Co.), fought in the Union Army and died during the war (a family legend says, at the hands of his brother, who was a bandit/partisan who occasionally supported the Confederacy). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stewart king (talk • contribs) 20:56, 10 June 2009 (UTC)