Wise to Lee, _Id_., vol.ii.p.

1012; vol.v.p.

769.] The contrast between promise and performance in his case had been ludicrous.

When we entered the valley, we heard of his proclamations and orders, which breathed the spirit of desperate hand-to-hand conflict.

His soldiers had been told to despise long-range fire-arms, and to trust to bowie-knives, which our invading hordes would never dare to face.
We found some of these knives among the arms we captured at the Gauley,--ferocious-looking weapons, made of broad files ground to a double edge, fitted with rough handles, and still bearing the cross-marking of the file on the flat sides.