As it turned out, I should have done better to have waited
at Flat-top Mountain till I knew that Crook was at Lewisburg, and
then to have made a fresh combination of movements. Our experience
only added another to the numerous proofs the whole campaign
furnished, of the futility of such combined operations from distant
bases,
Major-General Loring took command of all the Confederate forces in
southwestern Virginia on the 19th or 20th of May, and Heth was
already in march to oppose Crook's forward movement. On the 23d
Heth, with some 3000 men, including three batteries of artillery,
attacked Crook at Lewisburg, soon after daybreak in the morning.
Crook met him in front of the town, and after a sharp engagement
routed him, capturing four cannon, some 200 stand of arms and 100
prisoners. His own loss was 13 killed and 53 wounded, with 7
missing. He did not think it wise to follow up the retreating enemy,
but held a strong position near Lewisburg, where his communications
were well covered, and where he was upon the same range of highlands
on which we were at Flat-top, though fifty miles of broken country
intervened. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
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