Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, Volume 1 - April 1861-November 1863 by Jacob Dolson Cox
page 117 of 598 (19%)
page 117 of 598 (19%)
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Rosecrans had an advanced post, consisting of the Seventh Ohio
(Colonel E. B. Tyler), the Thirteenth (Colonel Wm. Sooy Smith), and the Twenty-third (Lieutenant-Colonel Stanley Matthews). On the 13th of August the Seventh Ohio, by orders from Rosecrans, marched to Cross Lanes, the intersection of the read from Summersville to Gauley Bridge, with one from Carnifex Ferry, which is on the Gauley near the mouth of Meadow River. A road called the Sunday Road is in the Meadow River valley, and joins the Lewisburg turnpike about fifteen miles in front of Gauley Bridge. [Footnote: See Official Atlas, Plate IX. 3, and map, p. 106, _post_] To give warning against any movement of the enemy to turn my position by this route or to intervene between me and Rosecrans's posts at Summersville and beyond, was Tyler's task. He was ordered to picket all crossings of the river near his position, and to join my command if he were driven away. I was authorized to call him to me in an emergency. On the 15th Tyler was joined at Cross Lanes by the Thirteenth and Twenty-third Ohio, in consequence of rumors that the enemy was advancing upon Summersville in force from Lewisburg. I would have been glad of such an addition to my forces, but knowing that Rosecrans had stationed them as his own outpost covering the Sutton and Weston road, I ordered Tyler to maintain his own position, and urged the others to return at once to Summersville. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. pp. 449, 453, 454.] The road by which they had expected the enemy was the Wilderness road, which crossed the Gauley at Hughes' Ferry, six miles above Carnifex. If attacked from that direction, they should retire northward toward Rosecrans, if possible. Rosecrans gave orders to the same effect as soon as he heard of the |
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