Both appealed to Lee, and Lee decided that Floyd was the senior
and entitled to command the joint forces. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. v. pp. 155-165, 800, 802-813.] The letters of Wise
show a capacity for keeping a command in hot water which was unique.
If he had been half as troublesome to me as he was to Floyd, I
should indeed have had a hot time of it. But he did me royal service
by preventing anything approaching to co-operation between the two
Confederate columns. I kept my advance-guards constantly feeling of
both, and got through the period till Rosecrans joined me with
nothing more serious than some sharp affairs of detachments.
I was not without anxiety, however, and was constantly kept on the
alert. Rosecrans withdrew the Twelfth Ohio from my command,
excepting two companies under Major Hines, on the 19th of August,
[Footnote: My dispatch to Rosecrans of August 19; also Official
Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 454.] and the imperative need of
detachments to protect the river below me was such that from this
time till the middle of September my garrison at Gauley Bridge,
including advance-guards and outposts, was never more than two and a
half regiments or 1800 men.
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