Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/284



URING the early part of 1863, Echols and Jenkins were still in Greenbrier county, but Floyd had withdrawn from Wyoming, which was penetrated by a Federal scouting party in February. In the same month a similar expedition did considerable damage in Pocahontas county. On the nth a detachment of Col. R. W. Baylor's cavalry had an encounter with the enemy in Jefferson county, and on the i6th, Captain McNeill made his third successful foray against Federal wagon trains near Moorefield.

On December 2pth, Gen. W. E. Jones had been assigned to command the Valley district, in the absence of Stonewall Jackson, and Imboden's command, which included McNeill's rangers, came under the direction of Jones. Colonel Imboden's force was then designated as the First Virginia partisan rangers, and his headquarters in Hardy county as Camp Hood. In pursuance of a request from General Cooper he set about making a regular enlistment, and the formation of the "Northwestern Virginia brigade," which in March was composed of the Sixty-second Virginia infantry, the Eighteenth Virginia cavalry, and a battery of artillery. The cavalry brigade under the immediate command of W. E. Jones included the Sixth, Seventh and Twelfth regiments, the Seventeenth battalion, Maj. E. V. White's battalion, and Chew's battery.