Statehood
West Virginia became a state on June 20, 1863, in the midst of the Civil War.
West Virginia Independence Hall, Birthplace of West Virginia
A House Divided: Statehood Politics and the Copperhead Movement in West Virginia, by Richard Orr Curry, University of Pittsburgh Press, Digital Edition.
Toward Statehood: Western Virginia on the Eve of War by Dr. Mark A. Snell
Civil War Trust’s Hallowed Ground Magazine, Fall 2011
The Tarnished Thirty-Fifth Star, by C. Stuart McGehee, Virginia at War 1861, edited by William C. Davis and James I. Robertson, Jr., Virginia Center for Civil War Studies, 2005.
Formation of West Virginia, by John Alexander Williams for the West Virginia Encyclopedia
Supreme Court case affirms legality of West Virginia statehood: Virginia v. West Virginia (1871)
Virginia v. West Virginia, 78 U.S. (11 Wall.) 39 (1871), is a 6-to-3 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States which held that where a governor has discretion in the conduct of the election, the legislature is bound by his action and cannot undo the results based on fraud. The Court implicitly affirmed that the breakaway Virginia counties had received the necessary consent of both the State of Virginia and the United States Congress to become a separate state, and explicitly held that the counties of Berkeley and Jefferson were part of the new state of West Virginia. Read more…
Take the 35th Star West Virginia statehood Quiz – from the West Virginia Encyclopedia
