Reference to the war map will show that this Pinega area gave all the
advantages of strategy to the Red commander, whose rapid advance down
the valley with the approach of winter had taken the Archangel
strategists by surprise. His position at Trufanagora not only gave him
control of the Mezen road and cut off the meats from Mezen and the
sending of flour and medical supplies to Mezen and Petchura, in which
area an officer of the Russian Northern Army was opposing the local Red
Guards, but it also gave him a position that made of the line of
communication to our rear a veritable eighty-mile front.

In our rear on the line of communication were the villages of Leunova,
Ostrov and Kuzomen, which were scowlingly pro-Bolshevik. One of the
commanders, Kulikoff, the bandit, hailed from Kuzomen. He was in
constant touch with this area. When the winter trails were frozen more
solidly he would try to lead a column through the forest to cut the
line.

Now began a struggle to keep the lower valley from going over to the
Bolsheviki while we were fighting the Red Guards above the city. It was
a desperate game. We must beat them at bluffing till our Russian forces
were raised and we must get the confidence of the local governments.

Half the new American force was sent under Lt. Stoner to occupy the
Soyla area on the line of communication, which seemed most in danger of
being attacked. The men of this area, and the women and children, too,
for that matter, were soon won to the cordial support of the Americans.
Treacherous Yural was kept under surveillance and later subsided and
fell into line with Pinega, which was considerably more than fifty per
cent White, in spite of the fact that her mayor was a former Red.

The rout of the White Guards at Visakagorka had not been as bad as
appeared at first. The White Guards had fought up their ammunition and
then under the instructions of their fiery Polish leader, Mozalevski,
had melted into the forest and reassembled many versts to the rear and
gone into the half-fortified village of Peligorskaya. Here the White
Guards were taken in hand by their new commander, Capt. Akutin, and
reorganized into fighting units, taking name from the villages whence
they came. Thus the Trufanagora Company of White Guards rallied about a
leader who stimulated them to drill for the fight to regain their own
village from the Reds who at that very moment were compelling their
Trufanagora women to draw water