Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

After the affair of Cross Lanes, Gen. Floyd proceeded to strengthen his position on the Gauley. Owing to an unfortunate want of concert between Wise and himself, these two Confederate forces in Western Virginia were separated by a deep and rapid river; and Floyd himself was unable to attempt a movement against Cox. Hie was far from his depot of provisions in Lewisburg, and being unprovided with adequate transportation, it would have been rash to have ventured forward on the north of the river. Knowledge of this situation of affairs was not lost upon the enemy. Gen. Rosecrans--a name which was hereafter to become familiar on more important theatres of the war-commanded the Federal forces between Buckhannon and Cheat Mountain. He at once conceived the idea of overwhelming the Confederates on both sides of the Gauley, and accordingly moved rapidly down the road leading from Weston to Summerville, with at least nine thousand men and several heavy batteries of artillery.

Gen. Floyd was in a bend of Gauley River, very near Carnifax Ferry. On the 10th of September, Rosecrans, by a rapid march of sixteen miles, threw his entire force about Floyd's entrenchments, and commenced a vigorous attack. The force of Floyd's command did not exceed seventeen hundred and fifty men. But his flanks were well protected by precipices or cliffs heavily wooded ; and from three o'clock until nightfall his centre, protected by an imperfect earthwork, sustained an assault from an enemy five times his numbers, made with small arms, grape, and round-shot, from howitzers and rifled cannon. As the sun was sinking, Rosecrans ordered a final and desperate charge. His troops pressed rapidly forward to short musket range; the Southern lines were wrapped in fire; a thousand bullets darted into the adverse ranks, and for a few moments the carnage was appalling. The Federals fell back, and returned no more to the assault. The ground was covered with hundreds of their dead and wounded. The Confederates had not lost a man killed and not more than twenty wounded.

During the night, Gen. Floyd crossed the river by means of two ferryboats and a hastily constructed bridge of logs. He had accomplished a brilliant success in the check and lesson he had already given the enemy; and knowing Rosecrans' superiority of numbers, and fearing for his own communications in his rear, he determined to withdraw to Wise's camp, and unite the two commands.

It appears that when Floyd had first learned of Rosecrans' advance, he had despatched orders to Gen. Wise for reinforcements, and that lie failed to procure them. He wrote to the War Department at Richmond that he could have beaten the enemy, if these reinforcements had come up when ordered; that if he could have commanded the services of five thousand men, instead of eighteen hundred, which he had, he could have opened