0 wagons, with camp equipage and regimental trains
complete, according to the army regulations then in force.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. pp. 577, 619, 629;
vol. li. p. 754.]

At Gauley Bridge I met Colonel Lightburn, to whom I turned over the
command of the district, and spent the time, whilst the troops were
on the march, in completing the arrangements both for our
transportation and for the best disposition of the troops which were
to remain. The movement of the division was the first in which there
had been a carefully prepared effort to move a considerable body of
troops with wagons and animals over a long distance within a
definitely fixed time, and it was made the basis of the calculations
for the movement of General Hooker and his two corps from Washington
to Tennessee in the next year. It thus obtained some importance in
the logistics of the war. The president of the railway put the
matter unreservedly into the hands of W. P. Smith, the master of
transportation; Mr. P. H. Watson, Assistant Secretary of War,
represented the army in the management of the transfer, and by thus
concentrating responsibility and power, the business was simplified,
and what was then regarded as a noteworthy success was secured. The
command could have moved more rapidly, perhaps, without its wagons
and animals, but a constant supply of these was needed for the
eastern army, and it was wise to take them, for they were organized
into trains with drivers used to their teams and feeling a personal
interest in them. It turned out that our having them was a most
fortunate thing, for not only were the troops of the Army of the
Potomac greatly crippled for lack of transportation on their return
from the peninsula, but we were able to give rations to the Ninth
Army Corps after the battle of Antietam, when the transportation of
the other divisions proved entirely insufficient to keep up the
supply of food.

From the head of navigation on the Kanawha to Parkersburg on the
Ohio was about one hundred and fifty miles; but the rivers were so
low that the steamboats proceeded slowly, delayed by various
obstacles and impediments, At Letart's Falls, on the Ohio, the water
was a broken rapid, up which the boats had to be warped one at a
time, by means of a heavy warp-line made fast to the bank and
carried to the steam-capstan on the steamer. At the foot of
Blennerhassett's Island there was only two feet of water in the
channel, an