War of the Rebellion: Serial 027 Page 1086 OPERATIONS IN N.VA.,W.VA., MD., AND PA. Chapter XXXI.
Night coming on, we lay down to get a little rest. I was awakened by cheering at daylight in the morning. Some of my advance pickets had discovered that the enemy fled during the night.
In taking the first hill, a gallant young officer (Columbus Beavers, second lieutenant Company A, Forty-fifth Virginia Regiment) was killed and several men wounded, not dangerously. The second hill was taken with a greater loss in wounded, and another gallant officer (Lieutenant [J. P.] Cox, Company C, Forty-fifth Virginia Regiment) killed.
My every movement was made by your orders, given me in person.
We pursed the retreating enemy to Cotton Hill, at which place your ordered one of my companies forward, under command of Major Bailey, who took with him also a company from the Twenty-second Regiment, as skirmishers. The Forty-fifth your ordered to follow them. Our skirmishers drove theirs back to the top of the mountain and discovered that the enemy were blockading the road and had sent a regiment back down the mountain to engage us. I flanked my regiment to the top of a ridge running perpendicular to the road and waited until they came in sight, when we opened upon them and drove them over the mountain, losing two of my brave boys. I engaged my regiment no more until I got to Charleston. There I occupied the hills on the south bank of the river and had some sharp fun dislodging the enemy's sharpshooters from the streets and the opposite banks of the river.
The officers and men of my regiment deserve praise. They marched without a murmur and fought gallantly. And to you, general, who led us, to the conflict, we feel that we have done our duty. Your own noble daring had its influence in prompting us.
No. 11. Report of Major Alexander M. Davis, Forty-fifth Virginia Infantry, commanding Twenty-sixth Virginia Battalion.
CAMP WILLIAMS, W. VA., September 18, 1862.