That doesn’t help with the question at hand. Union “Virginia” military formations raised from territory that became West Viginia became “West Virginia” units in 1863 when West Virginia was admitted to the Union. The question at hand is when Confederate military formations raised in territory that became West Virginia became “West Virginia” military formations, because as far as the Confederacy was concerned, they remained “Virginia” military formations throughout the entire Civil War.
And like I said, probably in 1871 when SCOTUS ruled that West Virginia was lawfully admitted as a state and not a rogue section of the sovereign Commonwealth of Virginia.
I really have never liked that terminology. The separate states are not, in fact, sovereign entities, although they do have some independent functions. They are still subject to the federal government.
I used sovereign specifically because a state is sovereign over their territory and the Feds cannot make a new state with their territory without their permission. And Virginia as that sovereign claiming they never gave permission to form West Virginia.
Indian tribes are exactly the same and yet they claim and are said to have sovereign status.
It’s used in the “self-governing” sense of the word, rather than the “not subject to any other authority” definition. The states do self-govern, so it applies, even if they do so within the bounds of a higher authority.
The Encyclopedia Britannica has a good article on sovereignty, and how in practice it often isn’t absolute in modern times and usage:
And again, that has nothing to do with the military lineage of units of the Confederate Army and when they became ‘West Virginian’. West Virginia was never a part of the Confederacy, and Union ‘Virginia’ military formations became ‘West Virginia’ military formations during the Civil War in 1863, not in 1871.
I think the missing part of the discussion is the question “how did Confederate formations become heritage for United States units after the Civil War?” In a sane world, those units would have been utterly disbanded and subjected to damnatio memoriae. (After all, the German Bundeswehr doesn’t have any SS heritage units.)
I assume there were South-friendly officials in the War Department that allowed traitor units to be rehabilitated as lineage for new US units.
As I understand it, after Reconstruction was cut off, the reinstated southern states reconstituted their Militia regiments “under new management” as was their power as states, and the new units adopted the history of the old. Then in the early 20th century when the National Guard was assembled out of the state militias, the new “national” units carried over the state unit legacies and their nominal “histories”. e.g. the 4th Alabama Regiment, dissolved after the war, was reconstituted in 1911. Then when WW1 came and the Army reorganized it got redesignated as 167th Infantry Regiment of the National Guard which still nominally claimed the old heritage and even wears a flash reading “4th Alabama” on their unit patches.
That makes sense, and goes back to my earlier comments: militia units (like National Guard) belong primarily to the states, so the best the DoD can do is try to undo the damage. But their practical authority is limited except when the units in question are nationalized, which is always temporary.