DISUNION - Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com The small Southern courthouse was packed to bursting. On this first afternoon of the new year, the Commonwealth of Virginia was preparing to chart her path forward – with the Union or apart from it – and the people of Wood County had gathered to make their voices heard.
Presiding over the meeting was a local squire named B.H. Foley, a conservative Democrat described by one attendee as “a large slave owner.” Seated near him were the two John J. Jacksons – grave, bearded worthies, father and son – whose cousin, not yet known as Stonewall, would soon link their family name indelibly with the Confederate cause.
But these Virginian patriarchs had not come to lend their support to the rebellion. They intended, rather, to denounce it as folly, as criminality – perhaps even as treason
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