A territorial district was assigned to me, including the southwestern part of Virginia below Parkersburg on the Ohio, and north of the Great Kanawha, reaching back into the country as I should occupy it.
[Footnote: The territorial boundary of McClellan's Department had been placed at the Great Kanawha and the Ohio rivers, probably with some political idea of avoiding the appearance of aggression upon regions of doubtful loyalty.] The directions to restrict myself to a defensive occupation of the Lower Kanawha valley were changed to instructions to march on Charleston and Gauley Bridge, and, with a view to his resumption of the plan to make this his main line of advance, to "obtain all possible information in regard to the roads leading toward Wytheville and the adjacent region." I was also ordered to place a regiment at Ripley, on the road from Parkersburg to Charleston, and advised "to beat up Barbonsville, Guyandotte, etc, so that the entire course of the Ohio may be secured to us." Communication with Ripley was by Letart's Falls on the Ohio, some thirty miles above Gallipolis, or by Ravenswood, twenty miles further.

Guyandotte was a longer distance below Gallipolis, and Barboursville was inland some miles up the Gurandotte River.

As to General Wise, McClellan wrote: "Drive Wise out and catch him if you can.

If you do catch him, send him to Colombus penitentiary." A regiment at Parkersburg and another at Roane Court House on the northern border of my district were ordered to report to me, but I was not authorized to move them from the stations assigned them, and they were soon united to McClellan's own column.
At Gallipolis I heard that a steamboat on the Ohio had been boarded by a rebel party near Guyandotte, and the news giving point to McClellan's suggestion to "beat up" that region, I dispatched a small steamboat down the river to meet the Kentucky regiments with orders for the leading one to land at Guyandotte and suppress any insurgents in that neighborhood.

[Footnote: Official Records, vol.
Ii.pt.i.p.