flatboats, and set to work calking them, meantime sending a party to
Buffington Bar, where they found a small earthwork and captured its
guard; and these things delayed them until morning. General Judah
attempted a reconnaissance, resulting in a fight, which he describes as
follows in his report:

Before leaving Pomeroy I despatched a courier to General Hobson,
apprising him of my direction, and requesting him to press the
enemy's rear with all the forces he could bring up. Traveling all
night, I reached the last descent to the river-bottom at
Buffington Bar at 5.30 A.M. on the 19th. Here, halting my force,
and placing my artillery in a commanding position, I determined
to make a reconnaissance in person, for the purpose of
ascertaining if a report just made to me--that the gunboats had
left on a previous evening, the home guards had retreated, and
that the enemy had been crossing all night--was true. A very
dense fog enveloped everything, confining the view of surrounding
objects to a radius of about fifty yards. I was accompanied by a
small advance-guard, my escort, and one piece of Henshaw's
battery, a section of which, under Captain Henshaw, I had ordered
to join my force. I advanced slowly and cautiously along a road
leading toward the river, ... when my little force found itself
enveloped on three sides--front and both flanks--by three
regiments, dismounted, and led by Colonel Basil [W.] Duke, just
discernible through the fog, at a distance of from fifty to a
hundred yards. This force, as I afterward learned, had been
disposed for the capture of the home guards, intrenched on the
bank of the river. To use Colonel Duke's own expression after his
capture, "He could not have been more surprised at the presence
of my force if it had been dropped from the clouds." As soon as