written to Beckley and Chapman, urging selection of militia corps, such as are willing and are armed, and will work with axes and spades. Chapman had recalled his men and orders. I have insisted on his renewing his call. Our teams are shoeless, and there are but very few blacksmiths. This delays me as much as any other cause.

Respectfully,

HENRY A. WISE,

Brigadier-General.

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, VA., August 11, 1861 - 6 a. m..

JOHN B. FLOYD, Brigadier-General, & c.:

SIR: Your note of yesterday reached me last night at 11 o'clock. A letter from Colonel Davis, of the 9th, from Meadow Bluff, was found unopened on my table with yours, no opened dispatches accompanying them. I have received none intended for you. Lest the letter of Colonel Davis to Adjutant-General Harvie may not have been the one opened and read by you, I inclose a copy to you.*

Please inform him that I have sent to you two 6-pounders and a detachment of artillery. I will re-enforce him with about 90 cavalry as soon as blacksmiths can be got to shoe the horses, nearly all of which are barefooted. In two or three days I may be able to move with my artillery and some companies of infantry. If you advance, sir, to Meadow Bluff and beyond to Little Sewell, I will follow as fast as my corps can be organized and made ready for the field.

I retreat to learn from General Beckley that General Chapman has recalled the select militia he ordered out. I have ordered General Beckley to proceed in selecting militiamen to co-operate with Major Bailey and Captain Caskie on the Fayetteville road. The militia had better be provided with pick and log wood axes, shovels, and spades to obstruct the roads, which may admit the enemy to our rear from Summersville and other points east of that place on the Gauley. Colonel McPherson, of Lewisburg, might readily select a corps of that description to operate on the road leading from near May's and Meadow Bluff to the Gauley. Very respectfully,

HENRY A. WISE,

Brigadier-General.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF KANAWHA,
Camp Arbuckle, near Lewisburg, August 11, 1861.

His Excellency JEFFERSON DAVIS,

President Confederate States of America:

DEAR SIR: After a few days' close observation in this part of the country I am quite sure the enemy's policy now is to hold all the western portion of the State lying on the Ohio River and as far eastward as the Cumberland range of mountains. They have at Gauley between four and five thousand men, and a like number at Summersvillee. They are 35 miles distant from each other. The interests of all the west imperatively demand that these people shall be driven out across the Ohio, which I think can be done with the proper management of the force to be secured in this region. I am a few miles west of Lewisburg and 14 miles west of General Wise.

I have deemed it proper, all points fully considered, to assume the command of all the troops about here. I accordingly have issued the.

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* Not found.

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