pon the work, and found it had been evacuated and the guns thrown
over the bluff. Pressing on a few hundred yards to reconnoiter the
Pomeroy road, we suddenly encountered the enemy. It proved to be General
Judah's advance. The 5th and 6th Kentucky instantly attacked and
dispersed it, taking a piece of artillery and forty or fifty prisoners,
inflicting some loss in killed and wounded.

The position in which we found ourselves, now that we had light enough
to examine the ground, was anything but favorable. The valley we had
entered, about a mile long and perhaps eight hundred yards wide at its
southern extremity,--the river running here nearly due north and
south,--gradually narrows, as the ridge which is its western boundary
closely approaches the river-bank, until it becomes a mere ravine. The
Chester road enters the valley at a point about equidistant from either
end. As the 5th Kentucky fell back that it might be aligned on the 6th
Kentucky, across the southern end of the valley, into which Judah's
whole force was now pouring, it was charged by the 8th and 9th Michigan
and a detachment of the 5th Indiana. A part of the 5th Kentucky was cut
off by this charge, the gun we had taken was recaptured, and our
Parrotts also fell into the hands of the enemy. They were so clogged
with dust, however, as to be almost unserviceable, and their ammunition
was expended. Bringing up a part of the 2d Kentucky, I succeeded in
checking and driving back the regiments that first bore down on us, but
they were quickly reinforced and immediately returned to the attack. In
the mean time Colonel Johnson's videttes on the Chester road had been
driven in, and the cavalry under Hobson, which had followed us
throughout our long march, deployed on the ridge, and attacked on that
side. I sent a courier to General Morgan, advising that he retreat up
the river and out of the valley with all the men he could extricate,
while Colonel Johnson and I, with the troops already engaged, would
endeavor to hold the enemy in check. The action was soon hot from both
directions, and the gunboats, steaming up the river abreast of us,
commenced shelling vigorously. We were now between three assailants. A
sharp artillery fire was opened by each, and the peculiar formation we
were compelled to adopt exposed us to a severe cross-fire of small arms.

We were in no condition to make a successful or energetic resistance.
The men were worn out and demoralized by the treme