established a seminary college outside Richmond, where he resided and taught classes whenever he was in town. Whelan also established several parishes, missions and schools. In 1848, Whelan petitioned Pope Pius IX to divide the Diocese of Richmond into two dioceses, with the Allegheny Mountains serving as the boundary. On July 19, 1850, Pope Pius IX erected the Diocese of Wheeling. He removed from the Diocese of Richmond all of Virginia west of the Allegheny Mountains and the state of Pennsylvania. Pius IX named Whelan bishop of the new diocese and replaced him in Richmond with Reverend John McGill of the Diocese of Bardstown. 1850 to 1870 When McGill arrived in Richmond in December 1850, the diocese had 7,000 Catholics, eight priests, and 10 churches. He convened the first diocesan synod in 1855. During his tenure, Virginia was devastated by yellow fever and cholera epidemics. Pius IX on August 15, 1858, transferred the territory of Alexandria to the Diocese of Richmond. The Federal government in 1846 had retroceded the city of Alexandria back to Virginia from the District of Columbia. During the American Civil War, Catholics in the Confederate States were unable to purchase Catholic books published in the North. To fill the gap, McGill wrote, "The True Church Indicated to the Inquirer" and "Our Faith, the Victory", republished as "The Creed of Catholics". He also visited Union Army prisoners of war in the Libby Prison in Richmond, doing what he could to aid them. In 1867, McGill brought the Sisters of Charity from Emmitburgh, Maryland, to set up a school in the diocese. McGill died in 1872 and Piux IX named James Gibbons, then vicar apostolic of North Carolina, as the new bishop of Richmond. Gibbons stayed in Richmond for five years, at which point Pius IX appointed him coadjutor archbishop of Baltimore. The start of the Civil War led to the formation of the state of West Virginia. It consisted of the western counties of Virginia, which had seceded from Virginia rather than be part of the breakaway Confederate States of America However, the new state boundary between Virginia and West Virginia did not coincide with the boundary between the Dioceses of Wheeling and Richmond. This disparity endured for over a century. Pope Pius IX erected the new Diocese of Wilimington on March 3, 1868. As part of that new diocese, the pope removed two Eastern Shore counties