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adopted at Alexandria on April 7th, 1864, treated them as still counties in the State of Virginia. Thus by article four, section five of that constitution, Berkeley and Jefferson counties were each entitled to elect two delegates to the General Assembly of Virginia. They constituted the twenty-fourth senatorial district, and each was entitled to elect one state senator, and with Clarke and Frederick Counties constituted the thirteenth judicial circuit.1

Thus Virginia was deprived of one-third of her richest territory. The whole proceeding was a farce, and not one legal step was taken in the formation of the State of West Virginia. The Constitutions of the State of Virginia and of the United States were treated as scraps of paper. The "restored government" of Virginia was recognized by Congress, and by Presidents Lincoln and Johnson, as legal and possessing the power to give the consent of the State of Virginia to its dismemberment for the purpose of forming a new State, and, yet when the war ended, this same government was treated as rebellious and illegal, and Virginia was degraded from the rank of a sovereign State to Military District No. 1 by the action of Congress!

1Acts of Assembly, 1861-1865, pages 10, 20, where the Alexandria ConIstitution is found.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE FIRST POPULAR MOVEMENT IN THE SOUTH FOR PEACE-PIERPONT RECOGNIZED AS GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA BY PRESIDENT JOHNSON

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FTER the evacuation of Richmond early in April, 1865, and the withdrawal of President Davis and his Cabinet, and of Governor Smith and the other state officers from the city, followed by the surrender of General Lee on April 9th, there was no government, civil or military, in the State to afford protection. to either persons or property, and lawlessness and rapine were rife in the country. In this state of affairs, Mr. Stuart was largely instrumental in calling a mass-meeting of the people of Augusta County in the City of Staunton on May 8th, 1865, to consider and decide what should be done to meet the emergency which confronted them. This was the first organized popular meeting for peace held in the South. Mr. Stuart has given an interesting account of the inauguration of this meeting and what action was taken by it as follows:

"As this meeting set on foot the first organized popular movement for 'peace,' I cannot doubt that I will render an acceptable service to the public by putting the record of its proceedings in a more enduring form and placing it under the guardianship of the Virginia Historical Society.

"The meeting to which I refer was a large assemblage of the best people of Augusta County, held at their courthouse in Staunton on the 8th of May, 1865, in pursuance of a notice which had been circulated as widely as possible during the preceding week.

"The circumstances under which the meeting was held

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were these: While intelligent and thoughtful men, who were correctly informed as to the exhausted condition of the Confederate treasury, of the absence of supplies of food, clothing, arms, and ammunition necessary to maintain an army the field, and, above all, of the disparity of numbers and equipment of the troops which were arrayed under the banners of Grant and Lee, respectively, at the opening of the campaign of 1865, had been forced to the conclusion that the days of the Confederacy were numbered, such was not the belief among the masses of the people in the country. They had been misled to some extent by the defiant attitude assumed by the Confederate Government, and in large measure by their unbounded confidence in the abilities of their great leaders, Lee and Johnston, and their associates, which caused them still to cling to the hope of final success.

"When, therefore, it became known to the people of Virginia, in April, 1865, that President Davis and his Cabinet, and other executive officers of the Confederate Government, and Governor William Smith and the other state officers of Virginia, had been compelled to withdraw from Richmond, and that General Lee had been obliged to evacuate the city and retreat southward with the remnant of his starving army-followed, as the news was in a few days, by intelligence of the surrender of General Lee's army at Appomattox, and the capitulation of General Johnston and his army-the tidings fell on the popular ear like a 'fire-bell in the night,' filling the public mind with consternation and dismay.

"Men of forethought saw at once that the Confederate cause was lost, and that a continuance of the struggle was hopeless and could result only in a wanton waste of blood and treasure, and an aggravation of the calamities which were inevitable. They saw, further, that we had been reduced to the sad condition of a people without any government, State or Federal. The Confederate Government had practically ceased to exist. The State Government had been overthrown. The officers of both were refugees, and there was no reasonable prospect of the re-establishment of either.

Every social bond had been ruptured. Society had been resolved into its original elements. All laws had become inoperative for want of officers to enforce them. All the safeguards of life, liberty, and property had been uprooted. Scenes of lawless violence and rapine were rife in the country. There were no officials who would be recognized as having authority to represent the people, or to give expression to their opinions and wishes.

"In a word, a condition of things had arisen in which, if the people wished their voice to be heard, they must speak for themselves.

"Such was the state of affairs which existed about the 1st of May, 1865, when half a dozen or more intelligent gentlemen of Staunton met together, informally, to consider and decide what should be done to meet the emergency which confronted them. After full and free discussion of the subject in all its aspects, they concluded that the wisest course would be to convoke a mass-meeting of the people of Augusta County to assemble at their courthouse on Monday, the 8th of May, 1865, to decide for themselves.

"Notices were accordingly issued, inviting the people to assemble at the time and place above mentioned to give formal expression to their sentiments on the grave questions to be submitted for their consideration. These notices were widely circulated by means of special messengers sent to all parts of the county during the week preceding the day appointed for the meeting; and on Sunday, the day before it was to be held, it naturally became the topic of conversation among the people at their homes, on the highways, and at their respective places of public worship. In this way the purpose to hold the meeting and its objects became known to almost every man in the county, and to many in adjacent counties.

'Among those who thus became acquainted with the purpose of the people of Augusta to hold the meeting on the 8th of May, and the subjects to be considered by it, was Governor William Smith. After he had been obliged to leave Richmond, before its formal evacuation, he had sought

refuge in a secluded part of Rockbridge County. On learning of the facts above stated, and doubtless influenced by a patriotic sense of official duty, he rode to Staunton, a distance of twenty-five miles or more, where he arrived about noon on Sunday, 7th of May. Soon after his arrival, he sent invitations to a number of gentlemen who had been active in getting up the 'mass-meeting,' requesting them to call on him at his hotel at three o'clock P. M. for conference.

"I was one of those invited, and at the hour appointed, accompanied by fifteen or twenty other gentlemen, went to the hotel, where we were politely received by the Governor. After the ordinary interchange of salutations and introductions, Governor Smith proceeded to open the interview by referring to the rumors he had heard of the proposed meeting and its objects. Without expressing any opinion, either favorable or unfavorable, to the objects which we had in view, he made known, in decided terms, his opposition to our holding it, on the ground that the proceeding would be irregular and, to some extent, revolutionary. He referred to the fact that he was the Governor of Virginia, and as such the constitutional representative of the State, and the only person empowered to open negotiations with the Federal authorities to secure peace and the restoration of the State to the Union. He insisted it was not competent for the people of any single county to inaugurate such a movement, thereby ignoring him and his constitutional powers and duties as chief executive officer of the Commonwealth, and, therefore, urged us to abandon the idea of holding the proposed meeting.

"In reply, it was stated that while under a normal condition of public affairs, in which he would be recognized as the lawful Governor of the State of Virginia, his views would be entitled to great weight, yet we thought it was obvious that he who had been a distinguished general in the military service of the Confederate States, and who had been elected Governor of one of the Confederate States under the auspices of the Confederacy, and had taken an

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