Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/173

Rh at Monterey, as also were Shumaker's Virginia battery and Maj. George Jackson's Fourteenth Virginia cavalry. Col. J. N. Ramsey's First Georgia and the remnant of the Twenty-fifth Virginia, under Maj. A. G. Reger, were placed at McDowell for reorganization; Col. Charles C. Lee's Thirty-seventh North Carolina and Col. William Gilham's Thirty-first Virginia, with some 2,000 men, were on the road between Huntersville and Valley mountain, with their advance at the latter place, holding the road into the head of Tygart's valley. After consultation with Gen. H. R. Jackson, it was decided that other troops which had been ordered to the Monterey line should be sent to Millboro, on the Virginia Central railroad, and thence by way of the Warm Springs to the Huntersville line.

After spending a few days at Monterey inspecting the troops and gathering information, General Loring, on the 1st of August, rode to the front, accompanied by his staff, Col. Carter Stevenson, assistant adjutant-general; Maj. A. L. Long, chief of artillery; Capt. James L. Corley, chief quartermaster; Capt. R. G. Cole, chief commissary; Lieut. H. M. Matthews, aide-de-camp, and Col. W. M. Starke, volunteer aide-de-camp. Most of these officers subsequently became distinguished; Colonel Stevenson as major-general in command of Hood's corps; Major Long as chief of artillery and brigadier-general in the Second Corps of the army of Northern Virginia; Captains Corley and Cole as the chief quartermaster and the chief commissary on the staff of General Lee, and Lieutenant Matthews as governor of West Virginia. Most of these had been officers in the United States army.

After crossing Alleghany mountain. General Loring reconnoitered the enemy's position on Cheat mountain and concluded that a direct attack on that, by way of the Parkersburg road, was impracticable. He then decided to take immediate command of the force which had been ordered to rendezvous at Huntersville, and attempt to turn Cheat mountain by way of the Valley mountain pass, which Colonels Gilham and Lee had been ordered to occupy. He directed Gen. H. R. Jackson to advance his whole force of some 6,000 men to the Greenbrier river, and hold himself in readiness to co-operate when the advance should be made from Huntersville toward Beverly. General Loring then rode down the valley of the