se of the latter should be developed, and encouraged me to hold
fast to my position. I resolved, therefore, to stand a siege if need
be, and pushed my means of transportation to the utmost, to
accumulate a store of supplies at Gauley Bridge. I succeeded in
getting up rations sufficient to last a fortnight, but found it much
harder to get ammunition, especially for my ill-assorted little
battery of cannon.

The Twenty-sixth Ohio came into the Kanawha valley on the 8th
through a mistake in their orders, and their arrival supplied for a
few days the loss of the Twenty-first, which had gone home to be
mustered out and reorganized. Some companies of the newly forming
Fourth Virginia were those who protected the village of Point
Pleasant at the mouth of the river, and part of the Twelfth and
Twenty-sixth Ohio were in detachments from Charleston toward Gauley
Bridge, furnishing guards for the steamboats and assisting in the
landing and forwarding of supplies. The Eleventh Ohio, under
Lieutenant-Colonel Frizell, which still had only eight companies,
had the task of covering and reconnoitring our immediate front, and
was the advance-guard already mentioned. Part of the Twelfth under
Major Hines did similar work on the road to Summersville, where
Rosecrans had an advanced post, consisting of the Seventh Ohio
(Colonel E. B. Tyler), the Thirteenth (Colonel Wm. Sooy Smith), and
the Twenty-third (Lieutenant-Colonel Stanley Matthews). On the 13th
of August the Seventh Ohio, by orders from Rosecrans, marched to
Cross Lanes, the intersection of the read from Summersville to
Gauley Bridge, with one from Carnifex Ferry, which is on the Gauley
near the mouth of Meadow River. A road called the Sunday Road is in
the Meadow River valley, and joins the Lewisburg turnpike about
fifteen miles in front of Gauley Bridge. [Footnote: See Official
Atlas, Plate IX. 3, and map, p. 106, _post_] To give warning against
any movement of the enemy to turn my position by this route or to
intervene between me and Rosecrans's posts at Summersville and
beyond, was Tyler's task. He was ordered to picket all crossings of
the river near his position, and to join my command if he were
driven away. I was authorized to call him to me in an emergency.

On the 15th Tyler was joined at Cross Lanes by the Thirteenth and
Twenty-third Ohio, in consequence of rumors that the enemy was
advancing upon Summersville in force from Lewisburg. I would have
been glad of such an