1861 August 20 Head Quarters Army of Occupation Clarksburg, Western Virginia

TO THE LOYAL CITIZENS OF WESTERN
VIRGINIA

You are the vast majority of the people. If the principle of self-government
is to be respected, you have a right to stand in the position you have assumed,
faithful to the Constitution and Laws of Virginia, as they were before the Ordi-
nance of Secession.

The Confederates have determined at all hazards to destroy the Government
which for eighty years has defended our rights and given us a name among the
nations. Contrary to your interests and your wishes they have brought war on
your soil. Their tools and dupes told you, you must vote for secession, as the
only means to insure peace; that unless you did so, hordes of Abolitionists would
overrun you, plunder your property, steal your slaves, abuse your wives and
daughters, seize upon your lands and hang all those who opposed them.

By these and other atrocious falsehoods they alarmed you and led many hon-
est and unsuspecting citizens to vote for secession. Neither threats, nor fabrica-
tions nor intimidations sufficed to carry Western Virginia against the interests
and wishes of its people into the arms of secession.

Enraged that you dared to disobey their behests, Eastern Virginians, who had
been accustomed to rule you and to court your votes, and ambitious recreants,
from among yourselves, disappointed that you would not make good their promises,
have conspired to tie you to the desperate fortunes of the Confederacy, or drive
you from your homes.

Between submission to them and subjugation or expulsion they leave you no
alternative. You say, you do not wish to destroy the old Government, under
which you have lived so long and peacefully; THEY say you shall break it up.
You say, you wish to remain citizens of the United States; they reply, you shall
join the Southern Confederacy, to which the Richmond junta has transferred
you, and to carry their will, their Jenkins, Wise, Jackson and other cosnpirators
proclaim upon your soil a relentless and neighborhood war; their misguided or
unprincipled followers re-echo their cry, threatening fire and sword, hanging and
exile to all who oppose their arbitrary designs. They have set neighbor
against neighbor and friend against friend; they have introduced a warfare only
known among savages. In violation of the laws of nations and humanity they
have proclaimed that private citizens may and ought to make war.

Under this bloody code peaceful citizens, unarmed travelers and single soldiers
have been shot down, and even the wounded and defenseless have been killed;
scalping their victims is all that is wanting to make their warfare like that which
seventy or eighty years ago was waged by Indians against the white race on
this very ground.

You have no other alternative left you gut to unite as one man in the defense
of your homes, for the restoration of law and order, or be subjugated or
driven from the state.

I therefore earnestly exhort you to take the most prompt and vigorous meas-
ures to put a stop to neighborhood and private wars; you must remember that
the laws are suspended in Eastern Virginia, which has transferred itself to the
Southern Confederacy. The old Constitution and Laws of Virginia are only in
force in Western Virginia. These laws you must maintain.

Let every citizen, without reference to past political opinions, unite with his
neighbors to keep these laws in operation and thus prevent the country from
being desolated by plunder and violence, whether committed in the name of Se-
cessionism or Unionism.

I conjure all those who have hitherto advocated the doctrine of Secessoinism
as a political opinion, to consider, that now its advocacy means war against the
peace and interests of Western Virginia; it is an invitation to the Southern Con-
federates to come in and subdue you and proclaims that there can be no law no
right until this is done.

My mission among you is that of a fellow-citizen, charged by the Government
to expel the arbitrary force which domineered over you, to restore that law and
order of which you have been robbed and to maintain your right to govern your
selves under the Constitution and Laws of the United States.

To put an end to the savage war waged by individuals, who without warrant
of military authority, lurk in the bushes, and waylay messengers or shoot sentries
I shall be obliged to hold the neighborhood in which these outrages are commit-
ted responsible; and unless they raise the hue and cry and pursue the offen-
ders, deal with them as accessories to the crime.

Unarmed and peaceful citizens shall be protected, the rights of private property
respected and only those who are found enemies of the Government of the United
States and peace of Western Virginia, will be disturbed. Of those I shall
require absolute certainty that they will do no mischief.

Put a stop to needless arrests, and the spread of malicious reports. Let every
town and district choose five of its most reliable and energetic citizens, a commit-
tee of public safety, to act in concert with the civic and military authorities
be responsible for the preservation of peace and good order.

Citizens of Western Virginia, your fate is mainly in your own hands.

If you allow yourselves to be trampled underfoot by hordes of disturbed
plunderers and murderers, your land will become a desolation. If you stand
for law and order and maintain your rights you may dwell together peaceably
and happily as in former days.

W. S. ROSECRANS

Brigadier-General U.S. Arm, Commanding


McGregor
A
1861
.R67