The western Virginia campaign, also known as operations in western Virginia or the Rich Mountain campaign, occurred from May to December 1861 during the American Civil War. Union forces under Major General George B. McClellan invaded the western portion of Virginia to prevent Confederate occupation; this area later became the state of West Virginia. West Virginians on both sides would fight in the campaign while a Unionist convention in Wheeling would appoint their choice for a Unionist governor for Virginia, Francis H. Pierpont, and promote the creation of a new state in western Virginia. Large scale Confederate forces would gradually abandon the region, leaving it to small local brigades to maintain hold on southern and eastern sections for much of the war. Western Virginia was an important source of minerals the Confederates needed for the production of arms and ammunition. It also contained several roads and turnpikes which would grant the Union access to Tennessee, North Carolina, and the Shenandoah Valley, while the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the northern part of the area connected the eastern Union states to the Midwest. Background In April 1861 a Virginia state convention voted to secede and join the Confederacy. However, there was much opposition to this action from the western counties of the state, which were tied closer to western Pennsylvania and Ohio than to eastern Virginia. Following the secession vote in Richmond, John Carlile, a Unionist leader from northwest Virginia, led a meeting at Clarksburg which called for a convention to meet at Wheeling the next month for determining what steps "the people of Northwest Virginia should take in the present emergency." The 1st and 2nd West Virginia Union infantry regiments were also raised the same month, participating in the first battle of the campaign at Philippi. To organize Union forces in the area, George B. McClellan was appointed commander of the Department of the Ohio, covering Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, western Pennsylvania, and western Virginia. He gathered several regiments raised in Ohio, Indiana, and western Virginia and moved into Virginia in early May, moving along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the Kanawha River. West Virginia, both before and after it was granted statehood, raised several infantry, cavalry and artillery regiments throughout the war to fight on the side of the Union. The Confederates appointed several commanders to organize troops in western Virginia: Colonel George A. Porterfield in northwestern Virginia, and