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supplies were needlessly ordered destroyed in the face of Federal advance that did not pose that big a threat. But he was fulsome in praise of the 20th?s behavior. These Mississippi soldiers saved the artillery on Cotton Hill, he wrote, and during the retreat provided the rear guard defense.
More act/ion came to Baxter and Company E during their rear guard skirmishes. Each day brought casualties. Sharp fights occurred at Big Laurel Creek on November 12 and two days later at McCoy?s Mill. There the Federals, overstretching their supply lines, stopped their pursuit. Now all the Confederates had to fight was a combination of rain and sleet, muddy roads, and constant lack of food and forage.
Finally the ordeal of retreat through the mountains ended at Peterstown, Monroe County, where the brigade prepared for winter quarters. Peterstown was less than 25 miles from the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad, and it appeared the supply problem was solved for the winter ahead. Capt. Rorer wrote that morale among the troops was rising, and commented that "The boys are all sitting around their log fires, laughing, talking, playing the fiddle and cooking..." The fiddle player might have been Marion Baxter that night; he had learned to play as a boy, and in later life kept up an interest in the instrument.
The prospect of spending the winter at Peterstown was short-lived. Floyd was ordered to move what was left of the Army of the Kanawha to Newbern, Virginia. There an inspection was made during the second week in December, 1861. The report complimented the 20th Mississippi on the fortitude displayed during the western Virginia campaign and recommended that the 20th and two other regiments from the Deep South be sent to reinforce the garrison at Charleston, South Carolina, where Lee had been dispatched, after his return to Richmond, to oversee the defenses of the South Atlantic seaboard.
On December 16 at Dublin Depot, near Newbern on the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad, the 20th Mississippi Regiment was ordered detached from Floyd?s brigade and sent to Gen. Lee in Charleston. But hardly had Private Baxter and the rest of the regiment cooked the customary three days? rations than their orders were countermanded. New orders sent the brigade to
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