My reconnoitring
parties reached Big Sewell Mountain, thirty-five miles up New River,
Summersville, twenty miles up the Gauley, and made excursions into
the counties on the left bank of the Kanawha, thirty or forty miles
away. These were not exceptional marches, but were kept up with an
industry that gave the enemy an exaggerated idea of our strength as
well as of our activity.
About the 10th of August we began to get rumors from the country
that General Robert E. Lee had arrived at Lewisburg to assume
direction of the Confederate movements into West Virginia. We heard
also that Floyd with a strong brigade had joined that of Wise, whose
"legion" had been reinforced, and that this division, reported to be
10,000 or 12,000 strong, would immediately operate against me at
Gauley Bridge. We learned also of a general stir among the
Secessionists in Fayette, Mercer, and Raleigh counties, and of the
militia being ordered out under General Chapman to support the
Confederate movement by operating upon my line of communications,
whilst Floyd and Wise should attack in front.
The reported aggregate of the enemy's troops was, as usual,
exaggerated, but we now know that it amounted to about 8000 men, a
force so greatly superior to anything I could assemble to oppose it,
that the situation became at once a very grave one for me.
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