Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election of 1861 by carrying all
states of the North and Northwest. Not one slaveholding state, however,
went for Lincoln. Within six weeks of Lincoln's election, South
Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi,Louisiana, and Texas
passed secession ordinances and joined to form the Confederate States of
America.
During this period, the people of the Upper South states of Virginia,
Maryland, Missouri, Arkansas, and Kentucky debated their future, and
leaders in Washington engaged in a futile pursuit of a compromise that
would prevent the secession of the border states and bring the already
seceded states back into the union.
Virginia's electoral votes had been won by Constitutional Union candidate
John Bell, and Bell had an especially strong showing in Augusta County.
After Lincoln's election, Augusta's political leaders urged moderation,
and at Virginia's convention on secession, Augusta's delegates resisted
moves to join the seceded states. There was an important qualification
to Augusta County's unionism, however. Most leaders, although calling
for Virginia to remain in the Union, insisted that secession was legal
and that the federal government must not use force against the seceded
states. Furthermore, some Augusta politicians argued that Virginia
should stay in the union only on the condition of specific federal
concessions to southern demands.
In light of Augusta's tenuous unionism, then, Lincoln's April 1861
decision to fortify U.S. Fort Sumter in the Charleston, South Carolina,
harbor was enormously important. Even more significant would be
Lincoln's call for troops to put down the rebellion after Confederate
cannons fired on Sumter.
