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By Bob Weaver
It is has been over 150 years since the Civil War (1861-65), the bloodiest American war over slavery.
These years later, some still wave the Confederate Flag - "The south will rise again."
In Calhoun and much of West Virginia, it pitted neighbor against neighbor.
A Wheeling Intelligencer article a few years after the Civil War said "The war will never end in Calhoun."
More than half of all deaths during the war were the result of disease (not bullets). The primary culprits included typhoid fever, dysentery, tuberculosis and pneumonia.
There were more than 50,000 casualties during the course of the battle at Gettysburg and during the Battle of Cold Harbor in Virginia, nearly 7,000 men died in a span of 20 minutes.
The total casualties during the Civil War are staggering.
Somewhere between 600,000 and 700,000 people died, but if you factor in the wounded, the total casualty number rises to around 1,030,000.
The war officially ended on April 9, 1865 when General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant. The formal surrender ceremony took place in the home of Wilmer and Virginia McLean in the town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia.
The lingering effects of the war fell upon Calhoun County, bitter feelings and revenge holding forth for many years.
Census takers even refused to acknowledge the presence of some Confederate families.
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