After the defeat and death of General Gar nett, Gen. W. W. Loring was ordered to the command of the Confederate forces in north western Virginia. and being strongly reinforced began preparations to retake Cheat Mountain. Before these preparations were completed, Gets. R. E. Lee was assigned to the command of all the Confederate forces in West Virginia and early in August joined Loring at Valley ier'a where he remained a month. making him self aapainted with the • ty, bringitur up re inforcements and supplii ! elahor.,... a plan of campaign by which as propose° to break through the .\1.(g1i.itlic., and recover the coun try west to the Ohio. Ilia point of attack was the Union position covering Beverly and the road westward. Mcaellan had been called to Washington, leaving General Rosecrans in com mand in West Virginia, and Gen. J. toReYn°Ida had command of the Union troops holding en trenched positions at Cheat Mountain summit. Elk Water and Huttonsville. Two Confeder ate columns were sent by the Staunton road against Cheat Summit and one by the Lewisburg and Hunsenville road against Elks Water. At the same time another column was ordered to pierce the line between Elk Water and Cheat Summit, a distance of eight miles through a trackless mountain ;k ;i1c tkai tof both posi uons. The movement began on 11 September, a part of c's command succeeded in reaching the rear c he Union troops at the summit, a part intact • by the Staunton Co.? ' in front and both were pill‘er1 The sent against Elk Water appeared before that position but, upon the failure of the other columns, made no attack, and on the 15th all the columns retired to their old Lee was greatly disap pointed and teeply mortified at his failure and was under - f. which he did not decree till after he had succeeded to the com mand of the Army of Northern Virginia, in June 1862. No further effort was made by the Confederates to regain the ground lost in the northwest, nor was a general Union advance at tempted but there were sharp encounters at Camp Bartow and Camp Allegheny (qq.v.), both resulting in Confederate success.
Floyd and Wise, who had united forces near Lewisburg, moved forward in the middle of August to Sewell Mountain and on the 23d Floyd crossed to the north side of Gauley River at Camillo( Ferry to flank Cox at Gauley Bridge and drive him down the Kanawha Val ley to the Ohio. He attacked and defeated the Seventh Ohio at Cross Lanes, on the 26th, and on 10 September was attacked by General Rose cram and that night recrossed the Gauley and retreated to Sewell Mountain. (See CARNITAX Fnsv). After some delay Rosecraus advanced to the top of Bic Sewell Mountain, 34 miles from Gauley Bridge and began skirmishing with the Confederates. Lee, with a part of Loring's command, joined Floyd on N Sep tember and assumed command. The two oppos ing armies that lay opposite each other upon the crests of Big Sewell, separated by a deep gorge, were about equal in number, but each coin mender had exaggerated ideas of the strength of the other and it was difficult for either to make an offensive move. Each was looking for
weak points in his adversary's position, using extraordinary energy to feed the men and ani mals, and waiting for the rains to cease and the mads to dry. But the rains did not cease, there was an extraordinary rise in the waters and on the night of 5 October Rosecrans began to fall back and at the end of four days his brigades were in camp between Hawks' Nest and Gale, Bridge. When Lee discovered that Rosecrans had gone he ordered the cavalry to Wow; when satisfied that he had gone clear to Bridge he began repairing the road from Sewell Mountain to Lewisburg and projected a campaign for Floyd down the left bank of New River and then to the mouth of Loop Creek, the head of navigation of the Kanawha, to intercept Rosecrans' communications, while an effort was being made to press him in front. Floyd lost no time in preparing for the move ment to drive Rosecrans from Gauley Bridge back to Charleston, probably to the banks of the Ohio. On 10 October he started and after a difficult march over mountain roads, crossed New River at Richmond Ferry and toiled on over the Raleigh, Fayette and Kanawha turn pike, through Fayetteville, and on the 22d camped on Cotton Hill, five miles beyond Fay etteville, in the elbow south of the junction of the New and Gantry rivers. On the next day he wrote the Confederate Secretary of War that with a proper force he could dislodge Rose crans from Gauley Bridge and drive him back to Clarksburg, with 10.000 additional men he would win the whole Kanawha Valley before the conclusion of the campaign. Meanwhile Lee had informed him that Lonng's troops would march back to the Cheat region, and this settled the fact that he would have to measure strength with Cox unaided by any advance on the Lewis burg road. On 1 November he opened on Rose crans with artillery. Rosecrans planned to cap ture him, and on the 12th Floyd retreated, nar rowly escaping capture. (See GAULET Burma). The campaign on the Kanawha, as in the Cheat melon, was ended. The inclement weather ren dered extended movements impracticable and both Union and Confederates found ample em ployment in getting up supplies, maintaining the roads in condition. providing shelter and guard ing against surprise. Scouting was restricted to narrow limits and the results were unimportant. But the campaign had been one of the greatest importance. The whole line of the Alleghenies, from the Pennsylvania border on the north and beyond the Kanawha on the south, was securely guarded against incursions from the east, and westward to the Ohio River, western Virginia was in the hands of the Union government. The political transformation of West Virginia kept pace with the military movements, finally resulting in a new State. Consult 'Official Records' (Vols. 1I, V); The Century Com pany's 'Battles and Leaders of the Civil War' (Vol. 1); Cox, 'Military Reminiscences of the Civil War' (Vol. 1).