"...there had to be more to it to cause so many men who had gone to West Point then were together in the Mexican campaign to give up all they had worked toward. Maybe it was Sumter for some of them but there were others who were either on the fence or had decided to go with the South before that. It just seems to me there was more than one issue."

Pam, to address one thing you mentioned, about West pointers going with the South. It is very hard for us today to grasp the loyalty to one's state of birth that drove these men. For instance, it is remarkable that George Thomas, a Virginian, sided with the North, based upon his oath to the Constitution, while Lee could have been drawn to defend Virginia, rather than adhere to that same oath. His loyalty to his state was the stronger pull, and he followed it. Sherman had spent many years in Louisiana before the war, was president of what bcame LSU, and liked the South, but he went North, being from Ohio. Having a brother who was a Senator probably figured somewhqat into his choice.

I am watching a History Channel documentary about how the states got their shapes. One mentioned was West Virginia, pointing out that it's shape was not due only to the War, but to the mountains separating the people from the Tidewater side. There was little contact between them, and a different culture had developed. These made the separtion and the boundary easier than it might have been. If it runs again, you should watch it. Stan