Down the Kanawha, below the falls, we strengthened the saw-mill with logs, till it became a block-house loopholed for musketry, commanding the road to Charleston, the ferry, and the opening of the road to Fayette C.H.A single cannon was here put in position also.
All this took time, for so small a force as ours could not make very heavy details of working parties, especially as our outpost and reconnoitring duty was also very laborious.

This duty was done by infantry, for cavalry I had none, except the squad of mounted messengers, who kept carefully out of harm's way, more to save their horses than themselves, for they had been enlisted under an old law which paid them for the risk of their own horses, which risk they naturally tried to make as small as possible.

My reconnoitring parties reached Big Sewell Mountain, thirty-five miles up New River, Summersville, twenty miles up the Gauley, and made excursions into the counties on the left bank of the Kanawha, thirty or forty miles away.

These were not exceptional marches, but were kept up with an industry that gave the enemy an exaggerated idea of our strength as well as of our activity.
About the 10th of August we began to get rumors from the country that General Robert E.Lee had arrived at Lewisburg to assume direction of the Confederate movements into West Virginia.

We heard also that Floyd with a strong brigade had joined that of Wise, whose "legion" had been reinforced, and that this division, reported to be 10,000 or 12,000 strong, would immediately operate against me at Gauley Bridge.