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Thanks, Forgot WV was admitted with slaver still legal, but there was legislation for a limited emancipation of those slaves in 1863

Yeah, West Virginia was an oddity. Their first state constitution set up gradual emancipation. It declared that children born to slaves would be born free, that slave under 21 would be free upon reaching age 25, and made no provision at all for slaves over 21 to be freed. After the 13th amendment was passed, West Virginia ratified it and abolished slavery totally on the same date, Feb. 3, 1865.

There's a great quote from one of the abolition advocates in the West Virginia legislature, "I discovered on that occasion as I never had before, the mysterious and over-powering influence 'the peculiar institution' had on men otherwise sane and reliable. Why, when Mr. Battelle submitted his resolutions, a kind of tremor—a holy horror, was visible throughout the house."