CONVENTION AT CLARKSBURG.
Up to this time all had been independent action on the part of the
several counties, but now a united effort was to be made. On the 22d
of April, 1861, a meeting of twelve hundred citizens, held under the
auspices of John S. Carlisle, the late delegate from Harrison county in
the Richmond convention, met at Clarksburg, and in a long preamble
declared that the means resorted to by the secessionists to transfer the
State from its allegiance to the Federal Government to the so-called
Confederate States, was wholly unjustifiable, and resolved that they
would resist such action to the last extremity. Before adjournment
the convention recommended to the people in each of the counties
composing Western Virginia, to appoint not less than five delegates
of their "wisest, best and discreetest men," to meet in convention at
Wheeling, on the 13th day of May following, "to determine upon
such action as the people of Western Virginia should take in the
present fearful emergency."
