Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/172



unsatisfactory condition of military operations on the line from Staunton to Parkersburg, as well as on that from Staunton to the Kanawha, during the month of July, was the cause of great anxiety, both to the Virginia government and to that of the Confederacy. Reinforcements were hurried forward on both lines, especially to northwestern Virginia on the Staunton and Parkersburg line, where the larger Federal force had been concentrated. After the death of Gen. R. S. Garnett and the retreat of his forces, the command of the army of the Northwest was, on the 14th of July, assumed by Brig.-Gen. H. R. Jackson, of Georgia, who established his headquarters at Monterey, 47 miles west of Staunton, and pushed his advance across Alleghany mountain to the Greenbrier river. Another column having been ordered to the Huntersville and Huttonsville road, mainly the brigade of Brig.-Gen. W. W. Loring, that officer was, as the ranking one, assigned on the 20th of July to the command of the army of the Northwest, which included the forces on both the Monterey and the Huntersville lines which had a common objective in the Federal force on Cheat mountain and near Huttonsville. General Loring reached Monterey on the 22d day of July and assumed command.

When Loring reached Monterey he found the army of the Northwest thus distributed: Col. Edward Johnson, with the Twelfth Georgia and Anderson's Virginia Lee battery, were on Alleghany mountain, with pickets, at Greenbrier river; Col. Albert Rust's Third Arkansas and Col. John B. Baldwin's Fifty-second Virginia were in supporting distance between Alleghany mountain and Monterey; Col. S. V. Fulkerson's Thirty-seventh Virginia, Col. William B. Taliaferro's Twenty-third Virginia, and Col, W. C. Scott's Forty-fourth Virginia were