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[–] 1Iron_Curtain 1 point 0 points (+1|-1) ago 

The population was mostly indifferent and had Confederate sympathies. I don't think they liked the plantation elite too much, mostly in the Northern part, but I think for the most part they feared the effects of emancipation and how it would effect their societies. Here is something about Confederates making advances all the way up near Morgantown, WV:

https://books.google.com/books?id=CFf2u5ZaNn0C&pg=PA157&dq=Confederates+in+Morgantown,+WV&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiY3Zzqj5DdAhWMzlMKHdzmC_0Q6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=Confederates%20in%20Morgantown%2C%20WV&f=false

That said, when one goes into Southwestern Pennsylvania, which some consider an extension of West Virginia, there was a strong dislike of Copperheads there. There were even some who considered lynching those who resisted the draft. People who resisted the draft(and it was rare) usually fled into Virginia and fought for neither side. I think everyone considered it a public duty in the Northern part of West Virginia and Southwestern Pennsylvania to fight for the Union. They were still upset with the old plantation elite, especially Thomas Jefferson, for screwing up their chances of having access to trade and business on the Ohio and then Mississippi River.

I think the strong emphasis on public duty and a conformist mentality in a place that was very individualistic has something to do with Puritanism influencing the general upper-crust in the region(mostly Southwestern Pennsylvania and Ohio) through Presbyterianism(which is what the elite in the region most likely would have been). I think we can firmly say the part of Charleston from Philippi down to the Beckley is pretty much a clear part of the South. I'm not too sure about the Northern part. It feels like the South in certain ways(sort of in an Appalachian kind of way), but even the dynamics work differently. Urban centers play a bigger role in the region, while in the South the urban areas centered around rural areas(this is true especially once you get up to Pittsburgh, which is Northern proper).

I think another similarity that the region shares with the South is to be found in some of the subcultures and pastimes. Its very lazy in the region, which is sort of a Southern trait too. I am convinced that if the black population was larger in the area it would have been Confederate, which would have included parts of Pennsylvania.

People tend to forget that this area was settled to some extent by the lesser landed squires of the Old Dominion, who would have been somewhat more open to the system of slavery, but were not firmly supportive of it and tended to distrust the tidewater elite. That said, the disgust with the plantation elite and their "sinfulness" and lavish wealth was much stronger than these people's desire to keep African-Americans from being emancipated in the Northern part of West Virginia.

The odd thing is that when you read into it basically the people saw blacks as slaves, whether they be freed or not, and viewed them as sort of like a different species of human. Its not explicit, but its sort of there in a very ethereal manner. I think its pretty clear that the area of West Virginia(except for the Confederate part) was not very important to fight for, firstly because it held no strategic value and secondly because the populations there were generally indifferent/apathetic and even fine with some of the Confederacy's creed of belief. They went after the area around the Ohio River(Morgan's Raid) and against Gettysburg because Union sympathies were much stronger and more concrete in the area(the Copperheads emerged around Gettysburg largely because of the runaway slave issue and because the area was so dominantly Union). That area of Northern West Virginia is pretty weird. You will see people voting for Obama but they have a Confederate flag in their back porch(this is not usual, but I would envision it would happen knowing the area). Then again the Confederate flag has a different meaning in my opinion historically in that part of the country than in the South, where it represented ensuring that blacks were never given social and political power, which is what the real fear behind emancipation was.

In Northern West Virginia and especially in Western Pennsylvania it is attached to being a rebel(anti-fed sympathies and feeling of being left out by the system economically speaking) and secessionism, sympathies that have been present in the region going back to the desire to make Westylvania a state of the Union. People say its the Pennsyltucky effect, but I really don't see Northern West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania having a whole lot of socio-political(not socio-cultural thought) and especially if we are talking about migration patterns, no real migratory pattern(Kentucky has much more connections to the Old Dominion, while places, like Northern West Virginia have more connections with Maryland and Eastern Pennsylvania/New Jersey and after that Ohio and Indiana(which is where the connection with Kentucky might be, but that is a later evolution).

I think proof that Western Virginia is Southern is how in the Western part of Maryland they voted for secession. A lot of the people in the area came from or had connections with the Western part of Maryland. The other thing that needs to be considered is industries and economies in an area and how they influence political views. The economies in the region did not depend on trade over a massive river, as is the case in the Ohio Valley, nor did they have massive ports, like the area from NYC to New England, and they disliked the monopoly of the plantation system. They preferred a more self-sufficient economy that did not connect back into a larger economic network, with a strong agricultural component, but in many areas of the Northern part of West Virginia you will find craftsmen and stock-raisers who depended on making gains from local markets or sometimes cities like Philadelphia and Charleston, WV. You will notice in places, such as Huntingdon, with a closer connection, to the part South of the Ohio River, they had much stronger Confederate sympathies.

Here is the 1860 election map showing that the counties in West Virginia that voted for John C. Breckinridge decided not to secede but the ones that voted for John Bell did end up seceding. Of course, the people above the Mason-Dixon like decided against voting for John Bell and John C. Breckinridge, mostly because of socio-religious convictions, desire to leverage more socio-political power over the American economy, and possibly a paranoia that since slavery was kept from expanding too far West that it would spread into major port areas and the rising industrial belt in the Ohio Valley(a lot of the North's reaction was built off paranoia of some sorts, ironic as that might sound when comparing them to the South). O

bviously, some of the fiercest Yankees were the Pennsylvania Dutch, as you will see with Somerset County, PA being dark Red(it was a county that was basically exclusively Pennsylvania Dutch):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1860#/media/File:PresidentialCounty1860Colorbrewer.gif

Another map:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1860#/media/File:RepublicanPresidentialCounty1860Colorbrewer.gif

I would say West Virginia is a Southern state, all things considered. I'd consider it more Southern than Missouri and in a way if you visit modern day Maryland and the Baltimore area I would even go far to say its more Southern than Maryland.

The big question is how far North does the South go(when does not take into account the Mason-Dixon Line) and how far South does the North go(I'd make an argument for the Shenandoah Valley or even the Northern part of the tidewater region having some slight connections to the North.

I'd consider Washington D.C. technically in the South, but more Northern than not, as weird as that might sound, because even these days its not typically Northern and very typically Southern in a way, but with more similarities to the Northeastern Metropolises.