Index to Robert E. Lee, August 1, 1861

General R. E. LEE, Commanding, &c.: * ‘Sir: Iam here, falling back to Covington, under orders left to my discretion by General Cooper. My situation in the Kanawha Valley was critical in the extreme. After the Scarey affair the enemy fell back and were re-enforced strongly. ‘They increased to five thousand. At Gauley I had one thousand; at Coal, one thousand; and at Elk, and within two miles thereof, about two thousand. Thus divided, necessarily the enemy could attack, when he chose, double or quadruple my numbers, with far better arms and supplies., I found they were collecting some fifteen thousand troops at Weston and moving to Summersville, at the same time moving up the Kanawha Valley and jamming me at any point I might select to occupy. I determined upon a prompt retreat, where my forces could co-operate with Generals Loring or Floyd. In thirty minutes after we fell back from Tyler’s Mountain the enemy took possession, and nearly succeeded in cutting off seven hundred of Colonel Tompkins’ command at Coal. They escaped, and burned the steamer on which they were moving up theriver. Save an accident from the defiant disobedience of orders by the lieutenant of the McCullough Rangers, losing some baggage and causing the death of one of my sick and the wounding of several of my men, ‘the retreat has been, upon the whole, creditably in order.

We left Charleston last Wednesday week [July 24] and Gauley last Saturday, destroying the bridges there behind us. This I was obliged to do by the great deficiency ‘of transportation, owing to gross inefiiciency of the quartermaster’s department of my brigade. ‘i have come onslowly. The men had been marched and countermarched very much, and were sore and sadly worn-out in shoes and clothing und suffered for want of tents. We arrived here yesterday, leaving a strong rear guard of four infantry companies, attached to two hundred and fifty cavalry. They are scouting the enemy to their teeth. Last night my scouts reported that they are moving on in three divisions, converging from Fayetteville, Gauley, and Summersville to a point on this turnpike a few miles back.

At Weston they have a force of fifteen thousand, and from Huttonsville movements are made to join those from Weston at Summersville, to, concentrate some ten thousand troops on this road, directly moving on Lewisburg. We will check them all we can, but a “force far larger ‘and better organized than mine is as yet must be sent to do it effectually. From Charleston to this place the State volunteers under my command lost from three to five hundred men by desertion. But one man deserted

val eS from the Legion. I respectfully submit that I had better be allowed to reorganize the whole mass and incorporate the State volunteers with my Legion in the Confederate service. I think the enemy will now threaten the Southwestern Railroad at New Berne, and they will make a base line from Gauley to Lewisburg.

The Kanawha Valley is wholly disaffected and traitorous. It was gone from Charleston down to Point Pleasant before I got there. Boone and Cabell are nearly as bad, and the state of things in Braxton, Nicholas, and part of Greenbrier is awful. The militia are nothing for warlike uses here. They are worthless who are true, and there is no telling who is true. You cannot persuade these people that Virginia can or will ever reconquer the northwest, and they are submitting, subdued, and debased. I have fallen back not a minute too soon. And here let me say, we have worked and scouted far and wide and fought well, and marched all the shoes and clothes off our bodies, and find our old arms do not stand service. I implore for some (one thousand) stand of good arms, percussion muskets, sabers, pistols, tents, blankets, shoes, rifles, and powder.

Respectfully,