[Tell It Right]

Respectfully, didn't Virginia already start their secession convention in January 1861? Didn't the governor call for it as far back as November 1860?

Maybe Virginia's secession wasn't formal until April 1861 (after Lincoln was inaugurated). But I think it's safe to say Lincoln saw that Virginia would soon join the other 7 Confederate states (more states seceded later).

[BroJoeK]

Tell It Right: "Respectfully, didn't Virginia already start their secession convention in January 1861?
Didn't the governor call for it as far back as November 1860?"

Yes, Gov. Lecter called for the convention on November 15, 1860, a week after the election of Lincoln as president.
Virginia's legislature authorized the convention, 152 delegates were then elected, and it first met on February 13.

As originally elected, Virginia's convention had:

1. 30 secessionists
2. 30 Unionists (mainly Western Virginians)
3. 92 moderates

For two months the convention debated various proposals.
The first vote came on April 4, result: 88 to 45 against secession.

Tell It Right: "Maybe Virginia's secession wasn't formal until April 1861 (after Lincoln was inaugurated).
But I think it's safe to say Lincoln saw that Virginia would soon join the other 7 Confederate states (more states seceded later)."

Sorry, but no, as late as April 4, 2/3 of Virginia's convention opposed secession.
The problem from Lincoln's perspective was that their opposition to secession was strictly conditional -- conditional on Union surrender to Confederate demands at Forts Sumter and Pickens, for starters.

If Lincoln meekly agreed to give up Fort Sumter, then Virginia would remain in the Union.
However, with the first cannon-shot and blood spilled, Virginians would vote to secede.

So that was the deal Lincoln was reported to want -- he would give up Fort Sumter, and Virginia's convention would permanently adjourn, so that Virginians could not then change their minds at the next moment of crisis, for example over Fort Pickens, Florida.
But that deal was impossible, and Lincoln understood: the first violence & bloodshed would cause Virginia to secede.

And along with Virginia would go the Upper South states of North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas.

But Lincoln believed that if the Union could keep the Border States of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, then the coming war could still be won.

After Fort Sumter on April 12 and Lincoln's call for 75,000 troops on April 15, on April 17 Virginia's convention voted for secession, 88-55.
Virginians ratified secession on May 23, by a vote of 132,201 to 37,451.

"And the war came."