Edward A. Pollard, "The First Year of the War", Richmond, 1862, pg. 177
"We have already adverted to the causes which contributed to
make the campaign in western Virginia a failure. The cause which furnished
the most popular excuse for its ineffectiveness---the disloyalty of the resident
population---was, perhaps, the least adequate of them all. That disloyalty
has been hugely magnified by those interested, in finding excuses in it
for their own inefficiency and disappointment of public expectation. While
Maryland, Kentucky, and other regions of the South, which not only
submitted to Lincoln, but furnished him with troops, were not merely
excused, but were the recipients of overflowing sympathy, and accounted
a charitable stretch of imagination "sister States" of the Southern
Confederacy, an odium, cruelly unjust, was inflicted upon western
Virginia, despite of the fact that this region was enthralled by Federal
troops, and, indeed, had never given much evidences of sympathy with the
Lincoln government as had been manifested both by Maryland and Kentucky
in their State elections, their contributions of troops, and other acts of
deference to the authorities at Washington. It is a fact, that even now, "Governor"
Pierpont, the creature of Lincoln, cannot get one-third of the votes in a
single county in western Virginia. It is a fact, that the Northern journals
admit that in a large portion of this country, it is unsafe for Federal troops to
show themselves unless in large bodies."