The river would have been impassable, for all the ferry-boats were
in the keeping of our men on the right bank, and Loring would not
dare pass down the valley leaving a fortified post on the line of
communications by which he must return. The topography of the wild
mountain region was such that an army could only pass from the lower
Kanawha to the headwaters of the James River by the road Loring had
used in his advance, or by that leading through the post of Gauley
Bridge to Lewisburg and beyond. The Confederate War Department seem
to have thought that their forces might have passed from Charleston
to the Ohio, thence to Parkersburg, and turning east from this town,
have made their way to Beverly and to the Valley of Virginia by the
route Garnett had used in the previous year. They would have found,
however, as Loring told them, that it would have been easy for the
National forces to overwhelm them with numbers while they were
making so long and so difficult a march in a vast region most of
which was a wilderness.
Lightburn's position had been made more embarrassing by the fact
that a cavalry raid under Brigadier-General Jenkins was passing
around his left flank while Loring came upon him in front.
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