Confederate Recruitment

The map above and the following information are all from James Carter

Linger's "Confederate Military Units of West Virginia", 2002. Here is his breakdown

by county of enlistment, the total of which he estimates to be

over 21,770 soldiers.

Mark Snell in his new book "West Virginia and the Civil War", History Press, 2011, pg. 28, states that West Virginia gave about half its men to the Confederacy, the only border state that did not give the majority of its men to the Union. He estimated about 20,000 to 22,000 men, which is what Charles Ambler estimated in 1905.

Barbour /over 420                                     Berkeley /over 800

Boone /over 430                                        Braxton /over 500

Brooke & Hancock /approx. 20                 Cabell /over 510

Calhoun /over 230                                     Clay /over 130

Doddridge /over 30                                    Fayette /over 750

Gilmer /over 300                                        Greenbrier /over 1700

Hampshire /over 1200                                Hardy /over 730

Harrison /over 360                                     Jackson /over 420

Jefferson /approx. 1600 *                           Kanawha /over 770

Lewis /approx. 400                                    Logan /over 780

McDowell /over 140                                   Marion /over 300

Marshall /approx. 10                                  Mason /over 60

Mercer /approx. 1500                                 Monongalia /approx. 80

Monroe /over 1530                                     Morgan /approx. 120

Nicholas /over 660                                      Ohio /over 130

Pendleton /over 750                                   Pleasants/over 40

Pocahontas /over 600

Preston /approx. 40                                    Putnam /over 380

Raleigh /over 410                                        Randolph /over 300

Ritchie /approx. 160                                    Roane /approx. 400

Taylor /over 150                                          Tucker /over 90

Tyler /over 30                                              Upshur /over 180

Wayne /over 540                                         Webster /over 230

Wetzel /over 40                                           Wirt /approx. 200

Wood /over 300                                           Wyoming /over 320

*Jim Surkamp believes the number from Jefferson County is approximately 800-1000,

since a number of men recruited in Jefferson County were from surrounding counties. 

At the Constitutional Convention in Wheeling, Dec. 4, 1861, Mr. Brown of Kanawha County,

speaking of the citizens who would be barred from voting, said-

"Treason against the United States we are told is to be a prohibition

to the exercise of the right of suffrage in the State of West Virginia

under this Constitution; and now, sir, let us see. When this goes

into operation in the coming years, the whole courts of the State are

crowded - or the Federal Courts that may be within the State

are crowded - with the five hundred indictments at every single

court for the next five or six years to come, of these very deluded

peoples, and upon which conviction in every instance must take

place, because the proof is so very clear and simple that those who

run may read; and by that very provision while you are convicting

not with a view of punishing, yet you are excluding them from the

right of suffrage. When this Constitution will be in operation and

a man is convicted of treason, then he is within the prohibition

and must be excluded from the right of suffrage. But we will find

the number to exclude will be almost legion."