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Carlile and his noisy supporters to task. He quelled fears that Virginia state troops were marching to break up the convention, reassuring delegates that “there would soon be any amount of men and money” to protect Union men in Western Virginia—Ohio Governor Dennison and General McClellan would see to that. 62
     
    Frank Pierpont offered a compromise to the advocates of “New Virginia.” Article IV of the U.S. Constitution inspired his plan: “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect them from invasion; and…against domestic violence.” Pierpont used it as a guide to hammer out resolutions in committee. The specter of treason offered by Willey had cooled the ardor of Carlile's supporters—the tide of popular opinion had turned. 63
     
    Withdrawing his statehood proposal, John Carlile moved to adopt resolutions declaring Virginia's Ordinance of Secession to be “unconstitutional, null and void.” Loyal Unionists were urged to condemn the ordinance on May 23 at the polls. If it was ratified, delegates would be appointed to a second Wheeling convention on June 11 to devise measures for the safety and welfare of Virginia's western counties.
     
    The resolutions were adopted; a Central Committee made up of Carlile, Pierpont, Latham, and six others was appointed to represent Virginia's Union interests. Carlile made a conciliatory address, but renewed his commitment to a “New Virginia.” “[C]ome life or come death,” he avowed to hearty applause, “it shall be accomplished.” 64
     
    Calls rang out for Waitman Willey to speak. Willey had nearly skipped the convention—he suffered from an aching back, and his father was near death. But lingering fears that the charismatic Carlile would push delegates into a rash and illegal act had carried him to Wheeling. 65
     
    Now Willey rose stiffly and summoned a voice that grew in passion and intensity. When the law failed, when the Constitution was exhausted, and when the Secession Ordinance was ratified—then he would stand with those who demanded a new state. Willey invoked the blessings of God and recited patriotic couplets. His speech literally “brought down the house.” It was a masterstroke, the Whig wheel-horse at his finest, charging the audience with an electricity that caused old men to jump and shout like schoolboys.
     
    “Fellow citizens,” Willey exclaimed, “it almost cures one's backache to hear you applaud the sentiment. But then the time for speaking is done.” He squared his jaw and looked over the assembly:
     
Fellow citizens, the first thing we have got to fight is the Ordinance of Secession. Let us kill it on the 23d of this month. Let us bury it deep within the hills of Northwestern Virginia. Let us pile up our glorious hills on it; bury it deep so that it will never make its appearance among us again. Let us go back home and vote, even if we are beaten upon the final result, for the benefit of the moral influence of that vote. If we give something like a decided…majority in the Northwest, that alone secures our rights. That alone, at least secures an independent State if we desire it.
     
    The convention of Virginia Unionists adjourned in a blaze of wild cheers. 66
     

CHAPTER 3
A TOWER OF STRENGTH
    “ My husband has wept tears of blood over this terrible war, but as a man of honor and a Virginian, he must follow the destiny of his state.”
    —Mary Custis Lee
     
    It was an agonizing decision, the most difficult of his life. Colonel Robert E. Lee had just resigned from the United States Army. “With all my devotion to the Union,” he wrote on April 20, 1861, “and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home.” 67
    Two days earlier, Lee had left his Virginia home for Washington to meet with Francis P. Blair Sr., an emissary of President Lincoln.