Methodists, Secession, and the Civil War in Western Virginia, 1845-1872

Enemies of the State: Methodists, Secession, and the Civil War in Western Virginia, 1845-1872 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Matthew Tyler Foulds, M. A. Graduate Program in History The Ohio State University 2012 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Randolph A. Roth, Advisor Dr. Alan Gallay Dr. John Brooke Copyright by Matthew Tyler Foulds 2012 Abstract Situated on the contested border between the North and South, western Virginia is an ideal case for analyzing how ministerial leaders inspired disaffected citizens. Western Virginians, relegated to the fringe of a state political structure dominated by eastern Virginia‘s slaveholding oligarchy, believed that their political system had failed them. They felt powerless to institute the political and economic reforms necessary to develop their region in the image of free-soil Ohio and Pennsylvania. Unable to seek redress through their political leaders, westerners turned to the traveling ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) to voice their discontent. MEC ministers actively defended western interests and cloaked them in a moral legitimacy that broadened their appeal to previously apathetic, isolated residents. Their ministry drew a fierce response from their opponent, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS). The MEC repelled these attacks and by 1861 far outpaced the MECS in members and political influence and boasted a following larger than any political party in the region. When conservative political leaders abandoned their offices and embraced the Confederacy upon the outbreak of the Civil War, MEC itinerants filled the void in political leadership, held western Virginia in the Union, and championed its statehood. In the process, they transformed their organization from a religio-political force outside the body politic into a pillar of the new state‘s government. ii Dedication Dedicated to Robert Foulds, Nancy Foulds, Katie Foulds, and Beth Joseph iii Acknowledgements I would first like to thank Carol Holliger and the staff of the Archives of Ohio United Methodism and Kevin Fredette, Harold Forbes, and the staff of the West Virginia Collection for their very useful assistance. I would also like to thank Daniel Crofts, Kevin Barksdale, and Bertram Wyatt-Brown, whose comments and suggestions on my manuscript at various stages were invaluable. I am especially grateful for my dissertation committee: John Brooke, whose candor when critiquing my work has made me a more careful and thick-skinned historian; Alan Gallay, for sharing his passion for the past and for teaching me the craft of research and the importance of telling a good story; and my advisor Randolph Roth, who never let me say in seven words what I could say in five and who has shown me what being a true mentor is all about. Special gratitude is reserved for my family and friends: Robert and Nancy Foulds, who made this all possible; Katie Foulds, for being a patient and loving sister; Hogan Foulds, who over innumerable evening walks helped me to lay out the structure of this project; and Igor and Karen Estrovich, Hunter Price, and Lindsey Patterson, whose friendship is priceless. Lastly, I would like to thank Beth Joseph. An occupational hazard of this profession is the ease with which one can become stuck living in the past. Aware of this, Beth has proven more capable than anyone of lovingly pulling me out of the nineteenth century, reorienting me in the twenty-first, and reminding me of what is most important in life. iv Vita 2001………………………………….........Charles F. Brush High School 2005…………………………………….....B. A., The College of Wooster 2006 to present…………………………....Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of History, The Ohio State University 2008…………………………………….....M. A., The Ohio State University 2011 to present…………………………....Adjunct Instructor, Ohio Dominican University Publications ―Enemies of the State: Methodists, Secession, and the Statehood Movement in Western Virginia, 1844-1865,‖ in Glenn Crothers and Kevin Barksdale, eds., Secessions: From the American Revolution to Civil War. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2012. Fields of Study Major Field: History v Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………ii Dedication………………………………………………………………………………...iii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………….iv Vita………………………………………………………………………………………...v List of Tables…………………………………………………………………………….vii Introduction: Methodists and Political Crisis in Western Virginia………………………..1 Chapter 1: The Contours of Virginia Sectionalism, 1776-1851: West versus East….......23 Chapter 2: ―Shriek! Ye Rampant Abolitionists!‖: Methodists Battle for the Hearts and Minds of Western Virginians, 1845-1860……………………………………………….85 Chapter 3: ―You Might as Well Talk About a Holy Devil as a Pious Traitor‖: Methodists and Unionism in Western Virginia, 1860-1863…….…………………………………..144 Chapter 4: ―There is No Middle Ground‖: Southern Methodists and Secession in Western Virginia, 1860-1865………………………………………………………………..…...194 Chapter 5: ―The Unscrupulous Oligarchy . Will Find Its Counterpart‖: The West Virginia Statehood Movement, 1861-1863……………………………………………..254 Conclusion: Reconstruction and Redemption in West Virginia, 1863-1872…………...311 References………………………………………………………………………………335 Appendix A: Additional Tables………………………………………………………...350 vi List of Tables Table 3.1: Sectional Methodist Churches in Western Virginia………………………...183 Table 3.2: Religious Affiliation, Socioeconomics, and Political Choice………………184 Table A.1: Secessionism, Religious Affiliation, and Political Affiliation……………...350 Table A.2: Unionism, Religious Affiliation, and Partisan Affiliation………………….351 Table A.3: County Secession Vote in Western Virginia Compared With Religious Affiliation and Other Socio-Economic Variables: Doddridge and Calhoun Counties…352 Table A.4: County Secession Vote in Western Virginia Compared With Religious Affiliation and Other Socio-Economic Variables: Putnam and Fayette Counties……...352 vii Introduction: Methodists and Political Crisis in Western Virginia On the thirtieth anniversary of the secession crisis that led to the Civil War, Charles Smith, editor of the Pittsburgh Christian Advocate, commemorated one of the most dramatic periods in American history. Smith focused pointedly on the ―people of Western Virginia,‖ who ―stood true as steel to the old flag‖ when ―the crash of a slaveholder‘s rebellion broke upon the country.‖ Western Virginians refused to be ―dragged into secession‖ by eastern Virginia and were rewarded two years later with the creation of the ―new and loyal‖ state of West Virginia. Smith reserved special praise in his narrative for the ministers and members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. ―Had it not been for the adherence of the Methodism of Western Virginia to the Northern Church . the story of that State, from 1861 to 1865, would have been vastly different. They had much to do with making it what it was and is.‖ He concluded regretfully that ―the world will never know what it cost the Methodist fathers . in endurance and toil to bring these things to pass.‖1 Smith‘s tale, while celebratory, underscores the connection between Methodist leaders and grassroots political mobilization during the Civil War era. When an 1844 dispute over slavery divided the Methodist Episcopal Church into antagonistic sectional organizations, border regions like western Virginia became 1 Pittsburgh Christian Advocate, February 19, 1891. 1 denominational battle grounds. Both the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS) considered western Virginia to be under their jurisdiction and commenced a vicious battle for church membership and property. The MEC and MECS sought to win converts and defend their position on slavery by immersing themselves in western Virginia‘s political culture. By the onset of the secession crisis, MEC and MECS ministers wielded substantial influence, which they used to shape their followers‘ political loyalties. The MEC became a potent unionist force while the MECS emerged as a defender of southern rights and the Confederate cause. Northern and southern Methodist clergymen, utilizing the organizational structure of their churches and their publishing houses, transformed themselves into political leaders and connected northern and southern partisans throughout western Virginia‘s rugged terrain. When the Civil War began in April 1861, MEC ministers continued to support the unionist cause and were pivotal to the formation of the state of West Virginia in 1863. The MECS, on the other hand, supported the Confederate Army‘s operations in western Virginia and sought to disrupt the statehood movement whenever possible. Since 1980, perhaps in response to the rise of the evangelical right, historians have become increasingly interested in how antebellum religious leaders entered politics and fanned the flames of sectionalism.2 In Broken Churches, Broken Nation, C.C. Goen asserted that the MEC was ―the most extensive national institution in antebellum America 2 An important earlier work was Donald Mathews‘ Slavery and Methodism: A Chapter in American Morality, 1780-1845 (Westport Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1965). Mathews probes the causes and results of the 1844 Methodist Episcopal Church schism, which centered on slavery. While Mathews concludes that the schism represented only one of many events contributing to sectional antagonisms in the years preceding the Civil

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