so far as the Union citizens were concerned. Thus the Guyandotte valley was introduced to the horrors of war.
Floyd was ordered to Dublin Depot, in December, and he finally abandoned the Kanawha valley. On December 15th, Col. George Crook, of the Thirty-sixth Ohio, sent out a detachment, which scattered the guards left at Meadow Bluff, burned the encampment, and returned after gleaning the livestock of the neighborhood. Raleigh Court House was occupied by a portion of Schenck's brigade, December 28th. The Huntersville line also was abandoned, General Loring leaving a guard of about 250 men, who were scattered on January 8th by an expedition from Huttonsville, which defeated the Confederates despite their gallant stand in two skirmishes, and entering the town, burned the military stores.
Thus the year closed with no organized Confederate commands in the State except in the northeast, though Gen. Edward Johnson, commanding the Monterey line, still clung to his mountain post on the border, Camp Alleghany, and held two regiments, Goode's and Scott's, near Monterey.
There were some little affairs in the center of the State in December, one in Roane county, in which a noted partisan, Lowerburn, came to his death, and about December 30th a force of Confederate partisans issued from Webster county, drove the Federal garrison from Braxton Court House, and burned the military stores there. But this was followed by swift retaliation, many of the band being killed and their homes burned—26 houses, the Federal commander reported.
At this time 40,000 Federal troops occupied the State, under the general command of Rosecrans, the Kanawha district being in charge of General Cox, the Cheat Mountain district under Milroy, and the Railroad district under Kelley, the West Virginia soldier who was promoted brigadier-general in the United States army after his success at Philippi.
