We fortified the post by an epaulement or two for cannon, high up on
the hillside covering the ferry and the road up New River. An
infantry trench, with parapet of barrels filled with earth, was run
along the margin of Gauley River till it reached a creek coming down
from the hills on the left. There a redoubt for a gun or two was
made, commanding a stretch of road above, and the infantry trench
followed the line of the creek up to a gorge in the hill. On the
side of Gauley Mount facing our post, we slashed the timber from the
edge of the precipice nearly to the top of the mountain, making an
entanglement through which it was impossible that any body of troops
should move. Down the Kanawha, below the falls, we strengthened the
saw-mill with logs, till it became a block-house loopholed for
musketry, commanding the road to Charleston, the ferry, and the
opening of the road to Fayette C. H. A single cannon was here put in
position also.

All this took time, for so small a force as ours could not make very
heavy details of working parties, especially as our outpost and
reconnoitring duty was also very laborious. This duty was done by
infantry, for cavalry I had none, except the squad of mounted
messengers, who kept carefully out of harm's way, more to save their
horses than themselves, for they had been enlisted under an old law
which paid them for the risk of their own horses, which risk they
naturally tried to make as small as possible. My reconnoitring
parties reached Big Sewell Mountain, thirty-five miles up New River,
Summersville, twenty miles up the Gauley, and made excursions into
the counties on the left bank of the Kanawha, thirty or forty miles
away. These were not exceptional marches, but were kept up with an
industry that gave the enemy an exaggerated idea of our strength as