eparture. It
was not till the 6th of July that a regiment could be sent, and
another followed in two or three days. The two Kentucky regiments
were not yet armed and equipped, but after a day or two were ready
and were ordered up the river by steamboats. I myself left Camp
Dennison on the evening of Sunday the 7th with the Eleventh Ohio
(seven companies) and reached Gallipolis in the evening of the 9th.
The three Ohio regiments were united on the 10th and carried by
steamers to Point Pleasant, and we entered the theatre of war.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 416: my report to
McClellan.]

My movement had been made upon a telegram from General McClellan,
and I found at Gallipolis his letter of instructions of the 2d, and
another of the 6th which enlarged the scope of my command. A
territorial district was assigned to me, including the southwestern
part of Virginia below Parkersburg on the Ohio, and north of the
Great Kanawha, reaching back into the country as I should occupy it.
[Footnote: The territorial boundary of McClellan's Department had
been placed at the Great Kanawha and the Ohio rivers, probably with
some political idea of avoiding the appearance of aggression upon
regions of doubtful loyalty.] The directions to restrict myself to a
defensive occupation of the Lower Kanawha valley were changed to
instructions to march on Charleston and Gauley Bridge, and, with a
view to his resumption of the plan to make this his main line of
advance, to "obtain all possible information in regard to the roads
leading toward Wytheville and the adjacent region." I was also
ordered to place a regiment at Ripley, on the road from Parkersburg
to Charleston, and advised "to beat up Barbonsville, Guyandotte,
etc, so that the entire course of the Ohio may be secured to us."
Communication with Ripley was by Letart's Falls on the Ohio, some
thirty miles above Gallipolis, or by Ravenswood, twenty miles
further. Guyandotte was a longer distance below Gallipolis, and
Barboursville was inland some miles up the Gurandotte River. As to
General Wise, McClellan wrote: "Drive Wise out and catch him if you
can. If you do catch him, send him to Colombus penitentiary." A
regiment at Parkersburg and another at Roane Court House on the
northern border of my district were ordered to report to me, but I
was not authorized to move them from the stations assigned them, and
they were soon united to McClellan's own column.

At Gallipoli