lessons. Three of the batteries taken away were regulars, and the
other was Loomis's Michigan battery, one of the oldest and best
instructed of our volunteer batteries. The places of these were not
supplied. The good policy of these reductions is not to be
questioned; for it was agreed that nothing aggressive could be done
in the mountains during the winter, and it was wise to use part of
the forces elsewhere.--Yet for those of us who had hoped to go with
the troops, and now found ourselves condemned to the apparently
insignificant duty of garrisoning West Virginia, the effect was, for
the time, a very depressing one.

General Schenck had left us on account of sickness, and did not
return. His brigade was again commanded by Colonel Scammon, as it
had been at Carnifex Ferry, and was stationed at Fayette C. H. One
regiment was at Tompkins farm, another at Gauley Bridge, two others
at intervals between that post and Charleston, where were three
regiments out of what had been my own brigade. Three partially
organized West Virginia regiments of infantry and one of cavalry
were placed at recruiting stations in the rear, and one Ohio
regiment was posted at Barboursville. The chain of posts which had
been established in the summer between Weston and Cross Lanes was
not kept up; but the Thirty-sixth Ohio, Colonel George Crook, was
stationed at Cross Lanes, reporting to me, as did all the other
troops enumerated above.

The Cheat Mountain district continued in command of General Milroy,
his principal posts being at Beverly and Huttonsville, with small
garrisons holding the mountain passes. General Kelley remained also
in command of the railroad district covering the communication with
Washington by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. General J. J.