Timeline of West Virginia: Civil War and Statehood
June 29, 1861

We copy the following from the Winchester Virginian, of the 8th instant:

By the following documents which have come to our hands, it will appear that the obscure person who is playing Governor at Wheeling, as a boy plays captain on a school play-ground, and the men who call themselves Auditor, &c., President of Convention, &c., are wanting a little more money : that which they stole from the Bank at Weston, and the few thousands which Abraham sent them, having been used up. The circulars below were sent to the Sheriff of Morgan county. The first advises him to take on the Wheeling label, as follows:

Commonwealth of Virginia, Executive Department, Wheeling, June 29th, 1861.
To the Sheriff of Morgan County:

Sir

--I have the honor to annex a copy of the oath of affirmation, which, by an Ordinance of the Convention assembled at Wheeling, on the 11th of June, 1861, is required to be taken by all officers now in the service of the State, or of any county, city, or town thereof, hereafter to be elected or appointed for such service. You will please return to this Department, within three days after you receive this communication, a certificate of some proper officer that you have duly taken the said oath or affirmation. I have the honor to be,

Your obedient servant,

F. H. Pierpont, Governor.

By the Governor:
L. A. Hagaus, Sec'y Com'th.

State of Virginia,--County, as:

Before the subscriber, a Justice of the Peace for the county aforesaid, this day, in my said county, came----, and took and subscribed the following--:

I, ----, solemnly : that I will support the Constitution of the United States, and the laws made in pursuance thereof, as the supreme law of the land, anything in the Constitution and laws of the State of Virginia, or in the Ordinances of the Convention which assembled at Richmond on the 13th day of February, 1861, to the contrary notwithstanding: And that I will uphold and defend the Government of Virginia as vindicated and restored by the Convention which assembled at Wheeling on the 11th day of June, 1861.

Given under my hand this : day of --, 186--.-- --, J. P.

The second circular bids him bring in his "balance." It reads thus:

The Commonwealth of Virginia, Auditor's Office, Wheeling, June 29th, 1861.
To the Sheriff of Morgan County, Va.:

Sir

--I beg leave to direct your particular attention to the fifth section of the "ordinance relating to the receipts and disbursements of the public revenue, and providing for the appointment of an Auditor, Treasurer, and Secretary of the Commonwealth."

The Governor, pursuant to law, having appointed the undersigned as Auditor and Samuel P. Hildreth, Esq., as Treasurer, to fill temporarily the vacancies heretofore existing in those offices, we are now prepared to adjust your accounts and receive the balance due the State.

I send you a copy of the Ordinance above named, also a copy of an "Ordinance relative to the collection of the revenue."

Trusting to hear from you at an early date on the matters herein specified, I remain,

Respectfully, yours,

N. Wilkinson, Auditor.

The ordinances above named, were duly sent and stated.

These documents, as we have said, were sent to the Sheriff of Morgan county; but that gentleman rather thinks that he will not comply; Francis H. will have to try somewhere else for his market money.

These documents will serve one good purpose. They will aid in convicting Francis and his fellow tories of the treason which they are enacting, and turn their farce into a tragedy. There is another day coming : even for Wheeling. We do not intend to part with one foot of land or one rill of water, in our entire territory. The only things we intend to part with are Francis and such as he. They will have to run or oscillate.

Timeline of West Virginia: Civil War and Statehood: June 1861