Narrator: As the war intensified, pro-Union leaders meeting in the Custom House at Wheeling declared the Richmond government null and void. They formed the Reorganized Government of Virginia with Wheeling as its capital and named a new Virginia governor loyal to the Union.

Secure behind Union lines, Pierpont's government chose John S. Carlile and Waitman T. Willey as United States senators from loyal Virginia.

Carlile immediately called for the formation of a new state.

“Borne down by an eastern governmental majority, we have endured the disastrous results that ever must flow from an unnatural connection. Cut the knot now, cut it now. Apply the knife.” —John Carlile

Narrator: Supporters haggled over the state’s name, suggesting New Virginia, Allegheny, then Kanawha.

“The name Kanawha is a very hard name to spell. I think the rose would smell sweeter by some other name.” —Waitman Willey

Narrator: Finally, they compromised on West Virginia.

The proposed new state contained 50 counties, including several in the northeast, where the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad operated.

John Hankey: "Berkeley, Morgan, Hampshire counties, Jefferson County; those were tied very much to the old Virginia plantation economy. If they didn't go with the new state of West Virginia, part of the B&O would continue to operate through a Confederate state, through hostile territory.

"The United States government, the new government of West Virginia, the management of the B&O, pretty much everybody decided that it was in the best interest of everybody if the B&O lay entirely within this new state of West Virginia."