er-General Jenkins was passing
around his left flank while Loring came upon him in front. Jenkins
with a light column of horse moved from Lewisburg by way of the
Wilderness Road to northwestern Virginia, captured posts and
destroyed stores at Weston, Buckhannon, and Roane C. H., and made a
circuit to the lower Kanawha, rejoining Loring after Lightburn's
retreat. Little real mischief was done by this raid, but it added to
the confusion, and helped to disturb the self-possession of the
commanding officer. In this way it was one of the causes of the
precipitate retreat.

Several circumstances combined to make Lightburn's disaster
embarrassing to the government. West Virginia had not been connected
with any military department after Pope's command had been broken
up. McClellan's authority did not extend beyond his own army and its
theatre of operations. Halleck could hardly take personal charge of
the affairs of remote districts. Thus the Kanawha valley had dropped
out of the usual system and was an omitted case. The embarrassment
was increased by the fact that Buell was retreating out of Tennessee
before Bragg, Morgan had evacuated Cumberland Gap and was making a
painful and hazardous retreat to the Ohio, and the Confederate
forces under Kirby Smith were moving directly upon Cincinnati.
Lightburn's mishap, therefore, was only the northern extremity of a
line of defeats extending through the whole length of the Ohio
valley from Parkersburg to Louisville. The governors of West
Virginia and Ohio were naturally alarmed at the events in the
Kanawha valley, and were earnest in their calls upon the War
Department for troops to drive Loring back beyond the mountains and
for an officer to command them who knew something of the country.

Halleck seems to have been puzzled at the condition of things, not
having realized that Pope's retirement had left West Virginia "in
the air." It took a week, apparently, to get satisfactory details of
the actual situation, and on the 19th of September the first
important step was taken by annexing the region to the Department of
the Ohio, then commanded by Major-General Horatio G. Wright, whose
headquarters were at Cincinnati. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
xvi. pt. ii. p. 328.] Wright was directed to provide for the
recovery of lost ground in West Virginia as rapidly as possible, but
the campaign in Kentucky was the more important and urgent, so that
no troops could be spared for secondary o