The error in not occupying Cotton Mountain himself was now not only made plain, but the consequences were not pleasant to contemplate.

I saw that the best service I could render him for the moment was to help him back into a frame of mind in which cool reasoning on the situation would be possible.

I have already stated the contrast between my own sense of care when in sole command and the comparative freedom from it when a senior officer came upon the field; and I now realized how much easier it was for a subordinate to take things coolly.

I therefore purposely entered into a discussion of the probabilities of the situation, and drew it out at length enough to assist the general in recovering full control of himself and of his own faculties.

We could not, from where we stood, see the post at Gauley Bridge nor even the place on Cotton Mountain where the enemy's battery was placed, and we walked a little way apart from our staff officers to a position from which we could see the occasional puffs of white smoke from the hostile guns.