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Confederate call to arms in West Virginia

WEST VIRGINIA - Joseph JOHNSON; and others. To the Southern Rights Men of Harrison County. War is upon us!

[N.p. but Clarksburg, VA]: April 1861. Small broadside or handbill (295 x 152 mm). Text in two columns. Signed in print by Johnson and 60 others. Condition: folds, minor staining at edges. extremely rare confederate call to arms in what would become west virginia. The text of the broadside continues: "A most fearful, terrible and devasting was has been inaugurated by the present administration; it has been forced upon the people of the South, and the proclamation of Lincoln calling for 75,000 men, to carry out the infamous behests of the North, to murder the citizens of our sister Southern States, is published in our midst ... Freemen of Harrison! will you stand by and permit this war to be waged without any interference or remonstrance? ... The Union is dissolved, it cannot be cemented again and made a Union by the spiling of blood. The independence of the Southern seceded States should be at once acknowledged ... Come one! Come all! ..." The broadside was issued in advance of a public meeting held in Clarksburg on 26 April 1861 - nine days following Virginia's secession. The men who have signed this broadside and no doubt attended the meeting, however, were in the minority. In June of 1861, with much of the western part of the state remaining loyal to the Union, the State of West Virginia was born. At least two of the men who have signed this broadside would become Confederate officers. Parrish & Willingham 5079 (locating but two copies).