the
West Virginia cavalry, and followed up the enemy with such vigor
that Jenifer was driven through Princeton too rapidly to permit him
to remove the stores collected there. [Footnote: Official Records,
vol. xii. pt. i. pp. 449, 450.] To avoid their falling into our
hands, Jenifer set fire to the town. Hayes succeeded in saving six
or eight houses, but the rest were destroyed. Jenifer retreated on
the Wytheville road, expecting us to follow by that route; but
Hayes, learning that the Narrows were not strongly held, and being
now reinforced by the rest of his regiment (the Twenty-third),
marched on the 6th to the Narrows which he held, [Footnote: _Id_.,
pt. iii. p. 140.] whilst he sent Major Comly with a detachment into
Pearisburg, the county-seat of Giles. [Footnote: James M. Comly,
later Brevet Brigadier-General, and since the war at one time United
States minister to the Sandwich Islands.] The affair at Camp Creek
had cost Jenifer some twenty in killed and wounded, and an equal
number were captured in the advance on Giles C. H. Our casualties
were 1 killed and 20 wounded. Our line, however, was getting too
extended, and the utmost exertions were needed to supply the troops
in their present positions. Princeton, being at the forking of the
roads to Pearisburg and Wytheville, was too important a point to be
left unguarded, and I at once sent forward Colonel Scammon with the
Thirtieth Ohio to hold it. [Footnote: _Id_., p 148.] On the 9th of
May the Twelfth Ohio was put in march from Raleigh to join him, and
Moor's brigade was approaching the last-named place where my
headquarters were, that being the terminus, for the time, of the
telegraph line which kept me in communication with Fremont.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. p 157.] The same day
the department commander informed me of the attack by Jackson on
Milroy on the 7th, and ordered me to suspend movements in advance
until my forces should be concentrated. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 158.]
The weather was rainy, and the roads suffered badly from cutting up
by the wagons, but I had hoped to push forward a strong advanced
guard to the great railway bridge near Newberne, and destroy it
before the enemy had time to concentrate there. This made it
necessary to take some risk, for it was not possible to move the
whole command till some supplies could be accumulated at Raleigh and
at Flat-top Mountain.

As fast as the supplies would permit, Moor went forward, tak