-Chief. They were based
upon the events which had occurred in the Kanawha valley since I
left it in August. The information got by General Stuart from Pope's
captured quartermaster had led to a careful examination of the
letter-books captured at the same time, and Lee thus learned that I
had left 5000 men, under Colonel Lightburn, to garrison the posts
about Gauley Bridge. The Confederate forces were therefore greater
than ours in that region, and General Loring, who was in command,
was ordered to make at once a vigorous aggressive campaign against
Lightburn, to "clear the valley of the Kanawha and operate
northwardly to a junction" with the army of Lee in the Shenandoah
valley. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 1069;
_Id._, vol. xii. pp. 940-943, 946. This correspondence fully
justifies Pope's suspicion that Lee then planned to operate by the
Valley of Virginia.] Loring marched, on the 6th of September, with a
column which he reported about 5000 strong, expecting to add to it
by organizing recruits and militia as Floyd had done in the previous
year. His line of operations was by way of Princeton, Flat-top
Mountain and Raleigh C. II. to Fayette C. H. His forces do not seem
to have been noticeably increased by recruiting till ours had
retreated out of the valley.

Lightburn's advanced positions were two,--a brigade under Colonel
Siber of the Thirty-seventh Ohio being at Raleigh C. H. and another
under Colonel Gilbert of the Forty-fourth Ohio, near the Hawk's
Nest, and at Alderson's on the Lewisburg road. A small post was kept
up at Summersville and one at Gauley Bridge, where Lightburn had his
headquarters, and some detachments guarded trains and steamboats in
the lower valley. Gauley Bridge was, as in the preceding year, the
central point, and though it was necessary to guard both the
Lewisburg and the Raleigh roads on the opposite sides of the New
River gorge, a concentration on the line the enemy should take was
the plain rule of action when the opposing armies were about equal.
Or, by concentrating at Gauley Bridge, my experience had proved that
we could hold at bay three or four times our numbers. In either
case, fighting in detail was to be avoided, and rapid concentration
under one leader to be effected.

On the approach of the enemy Siber was withdrawn from Raleigh C. H.
to Fayette, and Gilbert to Tompkins farm, three miles from Gauley
Bridge, but the brigades were not united. On the 10th of Sep