Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/238

30 the difficulty of his position, and on the i9th sent Maj. C. B. Duffield to Richmond with official reports and a letter, in which he complained bitterly of hostile feeling of the inhabitants of the valley, and of the difficulty of defending a position threatened by over 3,000 Federals at the Pocotaligo, 1,500 from Ripley to Sissonville, and forces from the north by Summersville. He had an engineer, "Colonel Adler, a Hungarian, a man of consummate ability, science and bravery," aided by Prof. Thomas I. L. Snead, of William and Mary, and Lieut. J. B. Harvie. "We are throwing up breastworks and defenses at every pass and mean never to be taken," he added.

But on the 24th the fears of General Wise regarding the weakness of his position were justified. Cox, by a circuitous advance among the hills, came upon the Confederate rear at Elk or Tyler mountain, and as soon as the outposts were driven in Wise was compelled to retreat up the river. The enemy brought up artillery to the bluff and nearly succeeded in cutting off 700 of Colonel Tompkins' command at Coal. They escaped but were compelled to burn the steamer on which they were about to start up the river, when the artillery fire was opened upon them. The retreat was made in creditable order, and on the 27th Wise and his army passed through Gauley, destroying the bridges behind them, because there was a great deficiency of transportation and the men, worn out with marching and countermarching, lacking shoes and clothing and without tents, were obliged to move slowly. He reached Lewisburg August 1st, and reported the enemy following in three columns from Fayetteville, Gauley and Summersville.

The Confederate forces were now practically expelled from transmontane Virginia. Wise lay in the Greenbrier valley, and the remnant of the forces that were with Garnett was at Monterey, beyond the limits of what is now West Virginia. Among the volunteers who