I reasoned that Wise's troops were, like my own, too raw to venture a night attack with, and contented myself with sending a strong reconnoitring party out beyond my pickets, putting in command of it Major Hines of the Twelfth Ohio, an officer who subsequently became noted for his enterprise and activity in charge of scouting parties.

The camp rested quietly, and toward morning Hines returned, reporting that a troop of the enemy's horse had come within a couple of miles of our position in search of information about us and our movement.

They had indulged in loud bragging as to what Wise and his army would do with us, but this and nothing more was the basis of our honest friend's fright.

The morning dawned bright and peaceful, the steamers were sent back for a regiment which was still at Point Pleasant, and the day was used in concentrating the little army and preparing for another advance.
On July 13th we moved again, making about ten miles, and finding the navigation becoming difficult by reason of the low water.

At several shoals in the stream rough wing-dams had been built from the sides to concentrate the water in the channel, and at Knob Shoals, in one of these "chutes" as they were called, a coal barge had sometime before been sunk.