Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/280

68 quiet citizens in obedience to the laws of the land, and to all such, clemency and amnesty are declared; but those who persist in adhering to the cause of the public enemy and the pretended State government he has erected at Wheeling, will be dealt with as their obstinate treachery deserves.

He appealed to all able-bodied citizens to join the army to "defend the sanctities of religion and virtue, home territory, honor and law," and declared that the oaths imposed by the invaders were void, being "immoral attempts to restrain you from your duty to your State and government."

Loring had considerable success at first in securing recruits and collecting conscripts, but these accessions were checked by rumors of another Federal invasion, and complaints began to go into Richmond of his course in gathering men, also regarding the methods of General Floyd, commanding the State line in Logan and Boone counties. Reconnoissances were made toward Point Pleasant, in one of which General Jenkins had a skirmish near Buffalo, September 27th. Loring at this time had about 4,000 men at Charleston and garrisons at Gauley and Fayette. On September 3oth the secretary of war ordered him to proceed soon, leaving a detachment to co-operate with General Floyd in holding the Kanawha valley, toward Winchester, to make a speedy junction with General Lee, destroy the Federal depots at Clarksburg and Grafton, make impressments from the Union men en route, paying in Confederate money, and capture and send to Richmond such prominent Union men as should come within reach. "Assure the people that the government has no animosities to gratify, but that persistent traitors will be punished, and under no conceivable circumstances will a division of the State be acquiesced in."

Loring replied, October 7th, that his most practicable movement was by way of Lewisburg to Monterey, which he had begun that day, and that he had sent out expedi-