Why did Southwest Virginia stick with Virginia?

OK, I was driving from Bristol, Va to Richmond, and it really struck me how radically different Southwest Virginia is from the rest of the state - its much more Appalachian than Virginian, which begs the question - why didn't it split off like most of (then) Western Virginia did and join West Virginia? Culturally, they're more in tune, and Charleston is closer than Richmond.

So is there a reason Southwest Virginia stuck with Virginia?
 
Essentially, geography. Although there was a strong Unionist population in southwest Virginia, they couldn't do more than fight small-scale guerrilla/partisan warfare, and there was little to no chance of being relieved by Union forces as happened IOTL West Virginia. It's the same reason why East Tennessee stuck with Tennessee, and North Alabama stuck with Alabama, etc.
 
I'll quote an old soc.history.what-if post of mine:


...one should not view West Virginia monolithically.
There was very strong pro-Union sentiment in Northwest Virginia, but there
were also pro-secessionists in much of the area that later became West
Virginia. The best study of this is Richard Orr Curry, *A House Divided:
A Study of Statehood Politics and the Copperhead Movement in West Virginia*
(University of Pittsburgh Press 1964).

Curry points out that it is important to distinguish between Northwestern
Virginia, Southwestern Virginia, and the Shenandoah Valley. There had
indeed been a time when all three of these regions had been united against
the slaveholders of eastern Virginia. The goals of the West at that time
had been universal manhood sufffrage, popular election of the governor (and
of judges, etc.), abolition of the governor's council, increased
representation in the General Assembly, and an end to tax discrimination in
favor of slave property. By 1830, the Valley had deserted the west,
politically; and the Tran-Allegheny Southwest folllowed suit over the next
few decades, leaving the Northwest as the only true "west." Partly, this
was because slavery was taking root in these areas (especially the Valley)
more than in the Northwest; also because internal improvements linked the
Valley and the Southwest to the rest of Virginia.

Not only did the Northwest not get any program of internal improvements
comparable to the Valley or the Southwest but such improvements as she
*did* get, such as the Cumberland Road and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
(the latter was hampered at every turn by the Virginia legislature and did
not reach Wheeling until 1852) tended to link her to the North, not the
South. Furthermore, the rivers of the area flowed westward into the Ohio,
which encouraged trade with the Northwest, not the South. And of course
slavery was not likely to flourish in a cold, mountainous area. Finally,
not only did places like Wheeling become industrial centers, but they got a
considerable Northern migration.

Thus far, Curry agrees with the traditional or "pro-Union" account of the
origins of West Virginia. But he emphasizes an often-neglected point: West
Virginia included a large number of Southwestern and Valley counties, and
even Northwestern counties were not *all* against secession. He argues
that the vote was about 30,000 to 10,000 against secession in northwestern
Virginia but 9,000 to 4,000 for it in the other areas of the future West
Virginia--which btw in terms of area (as distinguished from population)
made up a majority of the state. The counties he gives as favoring
secession are Logan, Boone, Wyoming, Mac Dowell, Mercer, Raleigh, Monroe,
Greenbrier, Fayette, Nicholas, Clay, Roane, Calhoun, Gilmore, Braxton,
Webster, Pocahontas, Randolph, Barbour, Tucker, Pendleton, Hardy,
Hampshire, and Jefferson. (The present-day counties of Mingo, Grant, and
Mineral did not yet exist; they were within pro-secesionist counties.)

So, while the creation of a West Virginia was logical, it was by no means
inevitable that it should have its current borders. Half the counties and
at least 36 percent of the population of what was to be West Virginia
favored secession. (Secessionist sympathies in some counties may have
eventually become stronger than the vote indicates. For example, Berkeley
County, in the Valley, voted against secession, but furnished at least 400
Confederate troops as opposed to 200 Union soldiers.) A West Virginia
confined to the counties which actually opposed secession would be an
interesting what-if. It would have been much more Republican and much more
"northern" in orientation than the West Virginia of OTL, which was
Democratic for decades after the Civil War--once the test oaths were
removed)--due to a coalition of ex-Confederates and ex-Copperheads.

Interestingly, at the 1861 Wheeling convention, John Carlile argued for a
state of "New Virginia" that would not have included the Southwestern or
Valley counties. The proper boundaries of the new state were also a
subject of much debate at the 1863 constitutional convention.
 
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