In June 1861, Confederate Gen. Henry A. Wise’s army occupied the Lower Kanawha Valley, and Union Gen. George B. McClellan assigned Gen. Jacob D. Cox to drive them out. Cox massed his troops in Gallipolis, Ohio, planned to cross the Ohio River, occupy Point Pleasant, and push up the Kanawha River to Charleston, then launched a three-prong drive on July 11. The first clash of consequence came at Barboursville on July 14, when Union Lt. Col George Neff, leading the column from Guyandotte with four companies of Col. William E. Woodruff’s 2nd Kentucky Infantry, met a sizeable Confederate force. Barboursville was defended from a hill overlooking the Mud River by county militiamen, the Sandy Rangers under Capt. James Corns, and the Border Rangers under Capt. James Ferguson; Albert G. Jenkins, later commander of the 8th Virginia Infantry and later a general, had recruited the Border Rangers. As the Federals neared the covered bridge, the Confederates opened fire, but the Kentuckians fixed bayonets and charged up the hill, driving out the defenders. One defender, who had never seen a bayonet, wrote that "I loaded and fired till the Yankees began to load with butcher knives, then I thought it was time to be going." Casualties were light on both sides, the Federals raised the Stars and Stripes over the courthouse, and then marched on to join the main force. Three days later they fought again at Scary Creek, and Wise subsequently withdrew from the Kanawha Valley.