Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/278

66 Gauley. At Cotton hill, next morning, reinforced from Gauley, they made a desperate stand against the pursuing Confederates, pouring grape and canister into the advance, but were finally driven, and the entire brigade, headed by Browne and McCausland, went down the hill with a shout, giving the enemy time to transfer but a small part of his force by ferry to the north bank. Those who got across fired the ferryboat, under the protection of their guns, and the magazines and commissary stores were seen to be in process of destruction. Dr. Watkins of the Thirty-sixth, Lieutenant Samuels of Williams' staff, W. H. Harman and Allen Thompson of the Forty-fifth, and some others, boldly sprang into the river, and swam across in a shower of grape and canister, seized the ferryboat, and brought it back to the south shore, extinguishing the fire with their hats as water buckets as they came. Echols' brigade, McCausland and Patton, crossed the Kanawha, seized the Federal camp without resistance, and pursued the retreating enemy across the Gauley toward Charleston on the north bank, while Williams and Wharton followed them up rapidly on the south side, with a skirmish at Montgomery's Ferry. On the following morning the enemy crossed at Camp Piatt. The artillery was active in the pursuit, keeping up a fire upon the enemy at their rear, as well as across the river from Williams' column.

As Charleston was approached, the Federals, who under the circumstances had displayed much gallantry, the fighting qualities of West Virginians being proved on both sides, made a sally across the river to check Williams, but unsuccessfully, and the enemy soon withdrew, mainly to a fortified eminence across the Elk river, while a portion of the command contested the advance of McCausland, then in command of Echols' brigade, and fired the buildings used for military storehouses. There was a hill on the south shore, commanding the Federal intrenchments and artillery beyond the Elk, from which sharpshooters