Virginia City Storey Nevada United States

The Comstock Lode, a lode of silver ore located under the eastern slope of Mount Davidson, a peak in the Virginia Range in Nevada (at this time western Utah Territory), is the first major discovery of silver ore in the United States, and named after American miner Henry Comstock.

After the discovery is made public in 1859, it sparks a silver rush of prospectors to the area, scrambling to stake their claims.

The discovery causes considerable excitement in California and throughout the United States, the greatest since the California Gold Rush in 1849.

Mining camps soon thrived in the vicinity, which become bustling commercial centers, including Virginia City and Gold Hill.

The Comstock Lode is notable not just for the immense fortunes it will generate and the large role those fortunes will have in the growth of Nevada and San Francisco, but also for the advances in mining technology that it spurs, such as square set timbering and the Washoe process for extracting silver from ore.

Nevada Territory has sent twelve hundred men to fight for the Union.

In May, 1863, Nevada had raised a battalion of cavalry the 1st Battalion Nevada Volunteer Cavalry.

In the summer of 1864, a battalion of infantry, First Battalion, Nevada Volunteers, Infantry had been mustered in.

The adjutant-general of Nevada reports that since the beginning of the Civil War, thirty-four officers and eleven hundred and fifty-eight enlisted men had voluntarily enlisted in the service of the United States from Nevada.

These troops are not used against the southern armies, but protect the central overland route and settlements on the frontier from the Indians.

With the units of California Volunteers engaged in the same service, they make incursions into Indian country, exploring large sections of territory that had never been entered by American forces, and have frequent skirmishes with the Indians.

However Nevada's main contribution to the war is the Comstock Lode, whose silver, totaling $400 million, finances the Union Civil War effort to defeat the southern states.

A common belief is that Nevada achieves early statehood due to its silver, but as the Union already has Nevada's silver due to Nevada being its territory, its statehood is due to political concerns, not economic.

There are several sympathizers to the Confederate States of America in Nevada during the War; in fact, of the "Pacific Coast" states, none have more southern supporters.

In Virginia City, in particular, sentiment towards the warring sides is split evenly.

However, in strict military fashion, any strong sentiment that is pro-Confederate is struck down, as Union army soldiers arrest he sympathizers and jail them at Fort Churchill.

The only time a Confederate flag is flown in the state is at a stone saloon, and defended by gunpoint by one of the saloon's owners until the owner's partner convinces him to change the flag to the United States flag before troops from Fort Churchill force the matter.

This causes the commander of Fort Churchill to feel additional paranoia about pro-Confederate sympathies in mining camps, and throughout the war Nevada will be under martial law.

One organization particularly pro-Union is the Virginia City Fire Department.

Many of them are originally from New York, and have strong feelings for the New York Fire Zouaves, who many had known when they lived back east.

When news had arrived of the Union defeat at the First Battle of Manassas, with the New York Fire Zouaves in particular suffering heavy casualties, it had been determined by the Virginia City firemen that they would book no celebrations by pro-Confederates, and they had bullied any southern sympathizer they met that day by fist and weapons.