bring up the rear. The road
down the Kanawha was abandoned because it was in range of artillery
from the opposite side of the river throughout its whole course down
the valley. The road to Ripley and Ravenswood was therefore taken,
and the flying troops were met at those towns on the Ohio by
steamboats which conveyed part of them to Point Pleasant at the
mouth of the Kanawha, where the whole command was concentrated in
the course of a few days. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt.
i. pp. 1058-1060.] Siber's loss was 16 killed, 87 wounded, and over
100 missing. Gilbert reported 9 men killed and 8 wounded, with about
75 missing; but as the enemy do not enumerate any captured prisoners
in their reports except a lieutenant and 10 men, it is evident that
the missing were mostly men who outran the others. Loring's losses
as reported by his surgeon were 18 killed and 89 wounded. The enemy
claim to have captured large numbers of wagons, horses, mules, and
stores of all kinds which Loring estimated at a million dollars'
worth, besides all that were burned.

It was a panicky retreat after the hot little fight by Siber's
brigade at Fayette C. H., and it is not worth while to apply to it
any military criticism, further than to say that either of the
brigades intrenched at Gauley Bridge could have laughed at Loring.
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 Brigadi