Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/174

154 Greenbrier to Huntersville, where he established his headquarters, about the last of July, and began to make arrangements for the proposed forward movements on the Federal forces at Huttonsville and on Cheat mountain.

Loring found at Huttonsville Col. George Maney's First Tennessee, Col. Robert Hatton's Seventh Tennessee, Col. John H. Savage's Sixteenth Tennessee, Col. John A. Campbell's Forty-eighth Virginia, Maj. John D. Munford's First Virginia battalion of regulars, Maj. W. H. F. Lee's squadron of Virginia cavalry, and Marye's and Stanley's Virginia batteries of artillery. Colonels Gilham and Lee were at Valley mountain, 28 miles west of Huntersville, with their two regiments, and Col. J. S. Burks' Forty-second Virginia and a Georgia regiment were en route from Millboro to Huntersville. The effective force on the Huntersville line was about 8,500 men, most excellent material for an efficient army, as they were all well armed and well equipped by the respective States that had sent them to the field. Most of them were skilled in the use of arms, as they had received military instruction in the volunteer companies which had been organized into regiments of State troops. Many of their officers were trained men, and all were in fine spirits and eager to be led against the enemy. It was obvious to all who were informed in reference to the position of the enemy, the intervening country, and the season of the year, that the success of the proposed movement depended altogether upon its speedy execution. General Loring had a trained staff, most of them old army officers, competent to expedite military operations. The point of vantage in the advance was already occupied by Colonel Gilham, and yet, to the surprise of every one, Loring lingered at Huntersville, giving his attention to establishing there a depot of supplies and to organizing a supply train, ignoring the facts that it was only two days' march to the enemy's position near Huttonsville; that beef cattle were abundant along the line of advance, and that so soon as Huttonsville should be reached, the road over Cheat mountain would be opened, if that position were captured, and supplies could be sent from Staunton over the Parkersburg turnpike.

The unsatisfactory results of military operations in northwestern Virginia and the constant appeals from the leading men of that region to be rid of Federal