1861 J Lee in Virginia; the State divided. 455 incomplete. The Secessionists were able to recover much of the valuable machinery in the armoury, and at the Navy Yard the hulls of the burned ships (among them the afterwards famous Merrimac), the partially disabled dry dock, and 1500 to 2000 serviceable cannon, formed a harvest of war material of great value and immediate use to the Confederates. One other event was of yet greater importance. Among the officers of the small regular army of the United States there was no general capable of performing active duty in the field. Lieutenant-General Scott was physically unable to mount a horse; General Twiggs, who surrendered the troops in Texas, had been cashiered ; General Wool was by reason of age unfitted for active duty. In making choice of a com- mander for the Federal army, the General-in-Chief, Winfield Scott, looked first to Robert E. Lee, whom Lincoln had recently promoted to the colonelcy of the 1st Cavalry. Lee had more than once declared himself against secession, calling it not only a revolutionary but a ruinous act; and the Administration informally tendered him the command. But whether because of family ties (he was a Virginian), or of property interests, or of more alluring overtures from the South, Lee on April 20 tendered his resignation to General Scott. On April 22, before his resignation had been accepted, he was formally invested by the Virginia Con- vention with the command of the Virginia troops hostile to the United States, and in course of time became General-in-Chief of the Confederate armies. He was, indeed, not the only loss to the United States. A similar defection carried about one-third of the officers of the regular army and navy into the service of the Confederates. The revolutionary impulse which so suddenly carried Virginia into secession did not extend over the whole of the State. In the part of her territory lying west of the Alleghanies, embracing more than one- third of her total area but only about one-fifth of her population, an overwhelming majority of the people remained loyal. Seeing that mere protest would be ineffectual there was developed at once a spontaneous popular movement to bring about a political division of the State. After a series of popular meetings, delegates from twenty-five counties met on May 13, at Wheeling, and arranged plans, in consequence of which a delegate convention, representing about forty counties lying between the crest of the Alleghanies and the Ohio river, met in the same city on June 11, and declared null and void the Secessionist proceedings at Richmond. On June 19 it created a provisional State government, under which Francis H. Peirpoint was appointed governor. Peirpoint in due time organised his provisional government at Wheeling, and on June 21 made formal application under the Constitution of the United States for aid from the general government to suppress rebellion and protect the people against domestic violence. The Lincoln Administration responded favourably to the
