Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/187

Rh not come, Loring marched late that night toward his old camp at Valley mountain, which he reached early in the morning of the 16th. Jackson remained in front of the Cheat mountain redoubt on the 14th and 15th, threatening to attack, especially on the 15th, when he made a demonstration on the Federal left; after which, at night, he returned to his Greenbrier river camp.

Shortly after General Lee left Valley mountain he sent back orders to Loring to send reinforcements to Floyd. Loring was very ill, and the doctor would not allow him to be disturbed. A council of brigade and regimental commanders was called, that decided that the army should march at once for the relief of Floyd, leaving Gilham's brigade to cover the movement and take care of the 1,500 sick that were then in and near the camp. The march began promptly, and Gilham addressed himself to the hard task of removing the sick, the stores and his brigade equipage to Huntersville over nearly impassable roads. The division quartermaster failed to furnish sufficient transportation before the Federals appeared, the last of September, in full force, in his front and drove in his pickets. He made dispositions to repel an attack during a torrent-like downpour of rain. Early the next morning Gilham retired from Valley mountain toward Huntersville, taking his remaining sick and such stores as he had transportation for and destroying the remainder. The Federals did not follow.

After the withdrawal of the larger part of the army of the Northwest to the Kanawha line, the opposing forces on the Staunton-Beverly line remained quiet, mainly because of the condition of the almost impassable roads and of the constant rains; the Federal forces in their Cheat mountain and Elkwater fortifications, and at Huttonsville and Beverly on their line of communication toward Grafton; and the Monterey division of the Confederate forces at Camp Bartow, on the Staunton and Parkersburg turnpike, in the valley of the Greenbrier, 12 miles east from the Federal fortress on Cheat mountain, and on the Huntersville and Beverly line at Valley mountain, with detachments on the road to its base of supplies at Millboro depot.

The portion of the army of the Northwest left on the line leading to Beverly was in command of Brig.-Gen. Henry R. Jackson, with headquarters at Camp Bartow.