Well, as one who was born and lived for the first 25 years of my life in Charleston WEST VIRGINIA, but who later in life settled in the Alleghany Highlands of EAST VIRGINIA (although it's most often referred to as Southwest Virginia), I'd like to add a little clarity to the discussion, if I may.

Prior to the War Between the States, VIRGINIA was pretty clearly divided between the plantation economy of the counties east of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the more hardscrabble farming/mining/timbering areas in the western part of the state (actually Commonwealth, but that's another story - and by the way, who can name the 4 Commonwealths in the United States: two in the South, two in the North).

Anyway, with the coming of the WBTS, the area later to be named WVa was clearly divided on the issue of secession. Those counties in the southern and eastern part had cultural and economic ties with Richmond and that part of the state,and raised militia units which served with distinction in the Confederate Army (such as the Kanawha Riflemen, whose first Captain was George S. Patton Sr.), while the more northern and western counties, especially those bordering the Ohio River, were economically connected to Pittsburgh PA and Cincinnati OH. After the vote for secession was taken, a group of industrialists met in Wheeling and created a rump legislature which petitioned the federal government for admission to the Union. This was granted on June 20, 1863, when WVa became the 35th state.

Padre (Charleston High School, 1959)