rocession of boats slowly steamed up the rapids. We had hardly got
beyond them when we heard a distant cannon-shot from our
advance-guard which had opened a long distance between them and us
during our delay. We steamed rapidly ahead. Soon we saw a man
pulling off from the south bank in a skiff. Nearing the steamer, he
stood up and excitedly shouted that a general engagement had begun.
We laughingly told him it couldn't be very general till we got in,
and we moved on, keeping a sharp outlook for our parties on either
bank. When we came up to them, we learned that a party of horsemen
had appeared on the southern side of the river and had opened a
skirmishing fire, but had scampered off as if the Old Nick were
after them when a shell from the rifled gun was sent over their
heads. The shell, like a good many that were made in those days, did
not explode, and the simple people of the vicinity who had heard its
long-continued scream told our men some days after that they thought
it was "going yet."

From this time some show of resistance was made by the enemy, and
the skirmishing somewhat retarded the movement. Still, about ten
miles was made each day till the evening of the 16th, when we
encamped at the mouth of the Pocotaligo, a large creek which enters
the Kanawha from the north. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. li.
pt. i. p. 418.] The evening before, we had had one of those
incidents, not unusual with new troops, which prove that nothing but
habit can make men cool and confident in their duties. We had, as
usual, moored our boats to the northern bank and made our camp
there, placing an outpost on the left bank opposite us supporting a
chain of sentinels, to prevent a surprise from that direction. A
report of some force of the enemy in their front made me order
another detachment to their support after nightfall. The detachment
had been told off and ferried across in small boats. They were dimly
seen marching in the starlight up the river after landing, when
suddenly a shot was heard, and then an irregular volley was both
seen and heard as the muskets flashed out in the darkness. A
supporting force was quickly sent over, and, no further disturbance
occurring, a search was made for an enemy, but none was found. A gun
had accidentally gone off in the squad, and the rest of the men,
surprised and bewildered, had fired, they neither knew why nor at
what. Two men were killed, and several others were hurt. This and
the chaff