Monday, May 23, 2011

Virginia secession ratified; Jackson bags B&O

  • The people of Virginia ratify their state’s Ordinance of Secession in referendum by a vote of 132,201 to 37,451 and officially join the Confederate States of America. The pro-Union western portion of Virginia, however votes against secession and contemplates a protest against Virginia’s secession from the Union by seceding from Virginia themselves. In Wheeling, the center of pro-Union sentiment, the 1st Virginia (U.S.) Volunteer Infantry Regiment is complete and Colonel Benjamin F. Kelley is commissioned the commander./1861 
  • In western Virginia Colonel Thomas J. Jackson strikes the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad east of Harper’s Ferry, just at the end of busy noontime traffic as the trains fill both the east and west bound tracks. Jackson’s men block B&O’s system-wide rail transit, and capturing as many as 56 locomotives, bagging the largest single haul of rolling stock taken intact during the entire War./1861
  • Joseph Eggleston Johnston is sent to take command of the Confederate Department of the Shenandoah headquartered at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, and former Virginia governor John Floyd is commissioned a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army./1861

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