I was at Sewell Mountain at the time, but lost no time in writing her a careful explanation of the complete disconnection between his arrest by the civil authorities as a hostage, and a promise of non-interference with him on my part as an officer of the United States army.

I also showed her that the arrest of non-combatant Union men by the Confederate forces was the real cause of her husband's unpleasant predicament.

In view of the circumstances, however, I thought it right to request the Governor to substitute some other hostage for Mr.Parks, so that there might not be the least question whether the letter or the spirit of my military safeguard had been broken, and the result was that the gentleman was very soon at home again.
The most prominent citizen of the valley was the Hon.

George Summers, who had represented it in the Congress of the United States, and had opposed secession in the Virginia Convention with a vigor that had brought him into personal peril.

When, however, secession was an accomplished fact, his ideas of allegiance to his State so far influenced him that he was unwilling to take active part in public affairs, and sought absolute retirement at his pleasant home a little below Charleston on the Kanawha.