Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/241

Rh Hatton's and Savage's Tennessee regiments, Campbell's Virginia regiment (Forty-eighth), Colonel Munford's battalion, Maj. W. H. F. Lee's cavalry squadron, and Marye's and Stanley's batteries. Colonel Gilham was at Valley Mountain pass with his own and another regiment, and Burks' Virginia and a Georgia regiment were en route from Staunton. Loring's force on the Huntersville line was in all about 8,500 effective men. But the prompt advance which was contemplated in the orders of General Lee, was delayed for the establishment of a depot of supplies and the formation of a wagon train.

When General Wise had first been ordered to the Kanawha valley, he had been advised that whenever it became necessary for him to be joined by Gen. John B. Floyd, the latter should have command of the joint forces. The time for this junction had now arrived and trouble immediately resulted. Floyd, also an ex- governor of Virginia, as well as ex-secretary of war of the United States, had been telegraphed to at Abingdon, May 14th, by President Davis, asking him if he could raise a "brigade of your mountain riflemen with their own tried weapons." Floyd immediately responded that he could and would, and he was commissioned brigadier-general soon afterward. At Abingdon and Wytheville and Dublin Depot he took measures to protect the railroad communications of Richmond with Tennessee, until, under the orders of July, he moved to Covington and thence to the vicinity of Wise's troops at White Sulphur Springs. General Wise immediately objected to passing under the command of General Floyd, and an embarrassing situation followed, which in a large measure prevented effective work in the Kanawha valley.