But he did me royal service by preventing anything approaching to co-operation between the two Confederate columns.

I kept my advance-guards constantly feeling of both, and got through the period till Rosecrans joined me with nothing more serious than some sharp affairs of detachments.
I was not without anxiety, however, and was constantly kept on the alert.

Rosecrans withdrew the Twelfth Ohio from my command, excepting two companies under Major Hines, on the 19th of August, [Footnote: My dispatch to Rosecrans of August 19; also Official Records, vol.li.

pt.i.p.

454.] and the imperative need of detachments to protect the river below me was such that from this time till the middle of September my garrison at Gauley Bridge, including advance-guards and outposts, was never more than two and a half regiments or 1800 men.