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Well, if you want the real skinny on the VA/WV split, I will tell you. A group of self-serving Unionists gathered in Wheeling, VA. You should note that Wheeling is about as far out of Virginia that you could get without actually being in Pittsburgh. They felt safe there.
Anyway, they arrange for a staged referendum on Statehood and, with the cooperation of the Federal Government, they arbitrarily pick out 50 Virginia counties to make their new state. If you doubt my version, I will quote verbatim from one of the Wheeling delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Dec. 10, 1861, after the Statehood vote. Mr. Stuart of Doddridge County-"Now, Mr. President, to show you-and it needs but to look at the figures to satisfy the mind of every member-that even a majority of the people within the district of the thirty-nine counties have never come to the polls and expressed their sentiments in favor of a new state." (Debates and Proceedings of the First Constitutional Convention of West Virginia, Vol. 1, pg. 376) They added another 11 counties (10 of which had voted for Secession from the US) to the original 39 selected . And, by the way, once all West Virginians got their right to vote back, they utterly destroyed that Wheeling Constitution and wrote a new one.
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You left out the part that "Western Virginians" actually tried to create their own state nearly 100 years before they succeeded in doing so. Mainly because the wealthy who lived near the Virginia coast used the Western Virginians as their labor pool, but did not provide any of Eastern Virginia's money for schools or infrastructure in the Western part of the state. Only when the Civil War came to be did Western Virginia have enough population to be able to use that as leverage to get their wish.
Just the barbecue issue alone is enough to point out the differences.
Eastern NC's barbecue is vinegar- and pepper-based. Western NC's barbecue has ketchup added to it. SC's barbecue uses mustard, typically.
These seem like small differences, but are HUGE to natives. A member of the NC legislature ignited a long-simmering 'cue war by promoting a measure stating that barbecue sauce using mustard was nothing short of sacrilege. SC was not amused.
To the outsider, the differences seem small ... but Southerners are detail-oriented, have loooooooooong memories, and are more stubborn than anyone you will ever meet.
This shows that you really don't know a whole lot about SC (and I'm a SC native). While SC is most known for the mustard-based sauce, SC is actually home to all four barbeque types. The "original" barbeque sauce, dating back hundreds (yes, hundreds) of years is Vinegar and Pepper, the first and simplest of the four. It is found on the coastal plains of both North and South Carolina and to a slight degree in Virginia and Georgia. Mustard-based is the second type (in order of evolution). The third type of sauce found in South Carolina, in terms of the evolution of sauces, is Light Tomato sauce. This sauce is (or was) little more than Vinegar and Pepper with tomato ketchup added. That style of sauce is most famous in North Carolina in the Piedmont region of which Lexington, North Carolina, is the acknowledged barbeque center. It is also popular in the upper middle part of South Carolina and in the South Carolina Pee Dee region which is the upper coastal plain area of the state. The fourth sauce in South Carolina and, for that matter, the rest of the nation, is Heavy Tomato sauce. This sauce has evolved only recently, that is, in the last sixty or so years, and it's the last of the four major types.
But anyway, to somehow imply that there are vast cultural differences between the two states based on barbeque is really stretching it.
This shows that you really don't know a whole lot about SC (and I'm a SC native). While SC is most known for the mustard-based sauce, SC is actually home to all four barbeque types. The "original" barbeque sauce, dating back hundreds (yes, hundreds) of years is Vinegar and Pepper, the first and simplest of the four. It is found on the coastal plains of both North and South Carolina and to a slight degree in Virginia and Georgia. Mustard-based is the second type (in order of evolution). The third type of sauce found in South Carolina, in terms of the evolution of sauces, is Light Tomato sauce. This sauce is (or was) little more than Vinegar and Pepper with tomato ketchup added. That style of sauce is most famous in North Carolina in the Piedmont region of which Lexington, North Carolina, is the acknowledged barbeque center. It is also popular in the upper middle part of South Carolina and in the South Carolina Pee Dee region which is the upper coastal plain area of the state. The fourth sauce in South Carolina and, for that matter, the rest of the nation, is Heavy Tomato sauce. This sauce has evolved only recently, that is, in the last sixty or so years, and it's the last of the four major types.
But anyway, to somehow imply that there are vast cultural differences between the two states based on barbeque is really stretching it.
"Eastern Carolina" vinegar based sauce can be found as far west as Albemarle in south central NC (Stanly County). In fact, that's about all you see in Stanly County.
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