Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/236

28 was assigned to the command. July nth he began his movement up the Kanawha river, by boat, with advance guards marching along the river roads, while another column moved up the Guyandotte and another advanced overland from Ravenswood. In anticipation of this advance General Wise arranged to meet the enemy west of Charleston, posting 900 men at Coal and 1,600 at Two Mile and Elk, with outposts at Ripley and Barboursville; while 1,000 men were scattered in the rear from Gauley bridge past Summersville to Birch river, toward Rich mountain. He could not safely make the Parkersburg diversion suggested by Garnett and Lee. Instead he asked that Garnett reinforce the Kanawha army, at the very time that the latter general was engaged in his fatal retreat.

On the 16th, Colonel Clarkson, with Brock's and Becket's troops of horse, had a brisk skirmish with the enemy near Ripley, and another fight occurred at Barboursville with the right of Cox's army.

Wise wrote at this juncture that the difficulties of his situation were great, and that "this army here has grown by neglect at Richmond. It has been literally created by Colonel Tompkins, at first beginning with Patton's company alone, since assisted by my legion, which I have created between this and Richmond." Cox united his three columns at the mouth of the Pocotaligo, and on the afternoon of the 17th sent Colonel Lowe, with the Twelfth Ohio and two companies of the Twenty-first, to make a landing at Scary creek, where Colonel Patton with about 800 men held a position which commanded the river. Patton had been ordered by Wise to retreat to Bunker Hill, but he gallantly turned back of his own accord and met the enemy's advance. The enemy was better armed, and after a half hour's fighting a portion of Patton's command fell back. He rallied his men, however, and returning instantly to action was fifteen minutes later wounded and disabled. Capts.