The Great Schism: The Dividing of Virginia during the American Civil War

The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia found itself in a precarious situation during the Civil War. To the west, a group of radicals sought to divide the state. To the east lay the Old Dominion, with its eastern landowning establishment that had controlled Virginia society and politics since colonial days. Wedged between these warring interests, Valley residents had to tred a careful path--sometimes siding with the west about the eastern stranglehold on the privilege to vote; sometimes siding with the east about the exhorbitant costs for the building of roads, canals, and rail lines to the west. In the end, the Valley sided with the Old Dominion over the secession issue, but how did the northwestern radicals effect the coup that divided a state against its will?