Captain Messner continued his retreat over Guyandotte Mountain to Trump's farm, where he joined Captain Schoening early in the morning of August 6, sending [by] a mounted orderly these events to me. I received the news at noon and immediately started to Trump's farm, ordering Companies D and E Captain Wallar with 25 men of his cavalry company to join me at this place, from which I started at 3 o'clock next morning, August 7, with about 250 men, and reached Wyoming late in the evening by the Clear Fork. On this march I rallied some of those men who had been scattered in the woods. During the night I occupied the Court-House and closed the communication on the Tazewell road. Early in the morning, August 8, I started again and occupied all those communications (by pass) which lead from the above-named road to Logan, having been informed that the enemy had marched to Logan from Isaac Cook's farm. The cavalry detachment under Captain Wallar went forward on the Tazewell road as far as Guyandotte (big river) River, where he was informed that the enemy had already, between 9 and 10 o'clock on the previous evening, passed in utter confusion the Guyandotte River, and the remainder during the night, carrying along their wounded, Captain Witcher on a sled. Captain Wallar pursued the fleeing enemy beyond the Guyandotte up Indian Creek, but was not able to reach any of them. During this time numbers of armed Union men came over the mountain from Huff's Creek and informed me that on the 6th of August the enemy's cavalry companies under Straton and Witcher had joined the bushwhacker companies of Chambers and Beckley at Horse-pen Creek, driving before them armed Union men, who brought the news of the enemy's arrival to a company of the Fourth Virginia scouting in these parts.

At Dick Cannady's farm, near Beech Creek, another short combat was fought, in which on our side the major of the Fourth Virginia was killed by four balls, and on the enemy's side, Straton mortally and Witcher dangerously wounded, besides a few men were killed.

Witcher received the news of our arrival and immediately backed the cavalry to Tazewell road. The company of the Fourth Virginia was reported to be still surrounded by the bushwhackers, and I was entreated by the Union men of Huff's Creek to join in an attempt to relieve them. When about moving in this direction more Union men arrived and told me that the Fourth Virginia men were all safe on the other side of the Big Sandy (in Kentucky) in Peter's Creek. As I had during all this not received any information about Colonel Hines' detachment I gave my men the rest, of which they were much in need, and quartered the next day the whole force in Wyoming, from which place the male inhabitants had mostly fled before my arrival, notwithstanding that there some had taken the oath of allegiance before Captain Messner. The place, however, was soon filled by Union men coming from Union Fork and Rockcastle Creek, meeting at the Court-House in order to form a Union militia company, under the leadership of Mr. Walker, from Laurel, and R. M. Cook, from Rockcastle, both members of the Wheeling convention. All the Union men of those creeks are well armed and disposed to flight when sustained by any regular force. They apprehend an invasion (Floyd's) on the Tazewell road, which I believe very probable as soon as the harvest allows to sustain in Wyoming County without any assistance from other parts. He might march on the Tazewell road either along Guyandotte to Big Sandy or over Wyoming and Pond Fork to Brownstown, on the Kanawha; on both roads teams might be driven along.

There is no danger that the enemy would march from Wyouming to