Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

[112] to advance on Fredericksburg, seize the heights, and make his winter quarters in that more advantageous position, but General Halleck would not allow him to do so.¹

So ended the campaign of the Army of the Potomac in 1863, and at about the same time co-operating military operations in West Virginia were closed, by the expulsion from that region of nearly all armed and organized opponents of the Government. But few military events, having an important bearing on the grander operations of the war, had occurred there since the close of 1861.² We have already mentioned the brilliant exploit of General Lander, in the vicinity of the Baltimore and Ohio railway,³ early in 1862. Little was done there after that, except watching and raiding for more than a year. In May, 1862, General Heth was in the Greenbrier region, and on the day when Kenly was attacked at Front Royal,⁴ he marched upon Lewisburg with three regiments, and attacked two Ohio regiments stationed there, under Colonel George Crooke. Heth was routed, and escaped by burning the bridge over the Greenbrier behind him, with a loss of over one hundred men (mostly prisoners), four guns, and three hundred muskets. Crooke's loss was sixty-three men.

After this there was comparative quiet in West Virginia, until the summer of 1863, when a raiding party, one thousand strong, under Colonel John Tolland, composed of Virginia Union cavalry and the Thirty-fourth Ohio infantry, left the Kanawha Valley, went southward to a point on the Coal River, and then, turning more to the eastward, crossed over the rugged Flat Top, and other mountains of the Appalachian range, and, on the 18th of July, swept down upon Wytheville, on the Virginia and Tennessee railway. They charged into the village, when they were fired upon from some of the houses. The leader was killed, and Lieutenant-Colonel Powell, of the Thirty-fourth Ohio, was mortally wounded. This unexpected resistance startled the raiders, and, after firing the houses from which shots came, they hastily retired, leaving their dead and wounded behind them. After brief rest they started for the Kanawha, under Lieutenant Franklin. They suffered severely from fatigue and lack of food among the almost uninhabited mountain ranges, and at the end of a rough ride of about four hundred miles, going and returning, during eight days, they lost eighty-two men and three hundred horses.

A little later, General W. W. Averill started with his cavalry from Huttonsville, in Tygart's Valley,⁵ and passing through several counties in the mountain region southward, to Pocahontas, drove General W. S. (called “Mudwall” ) Jackson out of that shire, and over the Warm Springs Mountain, in a series of skirmishes. He destroyed the Confederate saltpeter works, and other public property in that region, and menaced Staunton. At Rock Gap, near White Sulphur Springs, he was met by a much larger force than his own, of General Sam. Jones's command, led by Colonel George S. Patten, when a severe struggle for the pass ensued, which lasted a greater portion of the 26th and 27th of August.

1863.

Averill's ammunition began to fail at noon of the latter day, when Patten was re-enforced. Averill retreated, and made his way back to Huttonsville, weakly pursued