Nothing but a union of the two columns would have
met the situation.
At the beginning of May, the additional transportation necessary for
my advance beyond Flat-top had not arrived, but we did not wait for
it. [Footnote: ._Id_., pt. iii. pp. 108, 112, 114, 127.] The
regiments were ordered to leave tents behind, and to bivouac without
shelter except such as they could make with "brush," for the
expected shelter tents also were lacking. The whole distance from
the head of navigation to the railroad at Newberne was one hundred
and forty miles. Flat-top Mountain and Lewisburg were, respectively,
about halfway on the two routes assigned to us. Some two thousand of
the enemy's militia were holding the mountain passes in front of us,
and a concentration of the regular Confederate troops was going on
behind them. These last consisted of two brigades under General
Henry Heth, as well as J. S. Williams's and Marshall's brigades,
under General Humphrey Marshall, with the Eighth Virginia Cavalry.
General Marshall appears to have been senior when the commands were
united. Looking south from Flat-top Mountain we see the basin of the
Blue-stone River, which flows northeastward into New River.
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