He was already growing old, but was indefatigable, pushing about in a rather prim, precise way, advising wisely, criticising dryly but in a kindly spirit, and helping bring every department into better form.

I soon lost both him and McElroy, my adjutant-general, for their three months' service was up, and they were made, the one colonel, and the other major of the Twentieth Ohio Regiment, of which my friend General Force was the lieutenant-colonel.
We fortified the post by an epaulement or two for cannon, high up on the hillside covering the ferry and the road up New River.

An infantry trench, with parapet of barrels filled with earth, was run along the margin of Gauley River till it reached a creek coming down from the hills on the left.

There a redoubt for a gun or two was made, commanding a stretch of road above, and the infantry trench followed the line of the creek up to a gorge in the hill.

On the side of Gauley Mount facing our post, we slashed the timber from the edge of the precipice nearly to the top of the mountain, making an entanglement through which it was impossible that any body of troops should move.