Colleagues:
 In investigating the history of southeastern Prince William County (the
region around Dumfries and the Quantico Marine base, not Manassas) and its
place in northern Virginia during the Civil War era, I encounter references
to Governor Francis Pierpont's Restored Government, the Unionist government
organized after the secession of the Richmond government from the United
States in 1861.  Pierpont's government exercised what authority it had first
from Wheeling, and, after West Virginia's statehood in 1863, from
Alexandria.  Secondary sources note that the authority of Pierpont's
government didn't extend very far geographically after its move to
Alexandria; it wielded various degrees of power on the eastern shore, in
Norfolk and Portsmouth, and in counties around Alexandria (which I infer to
mean today's Arlington County and the city of Alexandria).  However, I have
not found specific information as to which northern Virginia felt the reach
of Pierpont's administration.  Just how far into northern Virginia was
Pierpont's government able to consistently project authority?  Did Fairfax
County send delegates to the state assemblies meeting in Alexandria? Did
Loudon or Prince William?  Or were these counties a borderland of sorts
between Confederate Virginia and U.S.-held territories?

Edward Roach
Historian, Prince William Forest Park
National Park Service Servicewide Intake Class of 2003
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