The column from Greenbrier under Colonel Albert Rust, of Arkansas, was given the initiative, and on its success the plan detailed pivoted, but the several columns were expected to act at the same time and in concert. Colonel Rust's command, about 2000 strong, by a blind road to the Union right reached its designated position between the Red Bridge and Kimball's fortified position. Here it captured an assistant commissary, and from him received such an exaggerated account of the strength of Kimball's camp and the number of its men that, without awaiting the columns of Donnelson and Anderson, it retired with the one prisoner. Lee's main army moved north from Valley Mountain camp, on the turnpike, Anderson and Donnelson taking their designated routes to the right, the former passing to the head of Becky's Run, thence through the mountains to a position on the road in the rear of Cheat Summit camp, arriving at daylight of the 12th of September. Donnelson, by another path nearer the road which the principal column under Loring pursued, marched to Stuart's Run, then down it to the Simmons house, where, on the 11th, it captured Captain Bense and about sixty men of the 6th Ohio, who were in an exposed position and had not been vigilant. Donnelson then marched to Becky's Run and to a point where, from a nearby elevation, he could see the Union camp at Elk Water, and he was to the eastward of it and partially in its rear. Here, with his command, he remained for the night. General Lee followed and joined Donnelson in the early morning of the 12th, and together they advanced to Andrew Crouch's house, within a mile of Elk Water camp and fairly in its rear. Lee, however, ordered Donnelson to retire his column to Becky's Run at the Rosecrans house. Neither Rust, Anderson, nor Donnelson, though each led a column into the region between the Elk Water and Cheat Mountain camps (distant apart through the mountains about six miles) seemed, at the critical time, to know where the others were, or what they were doing. The presence of Lee with Donnelson on the morning of the 12th did not materially improve the conditions in this respect. Donnelson, before Lee's arrival, contemplated an attack on a body of what he supposed a thousand men (the detachments of the 9th and 23d Ohio) camped in rear of the main Union camp and near Jacob Crouch's house. Colonel Savage of the 16th Tennessee advised against the attempt, and Lee, on his arrival, must have regarded it as too hazardous. Lee wrote Governor Letcher five days later that "it was a tempting sight" to see our tents on Valley River. Loring, with the principal command, accompanied by all the artillery, forced the Union pickets back to the mouth of Elk Water, where he encountered resistance from a strong grand-guard and the pickets. Here some shots both of infantry and artillery were exchanged, but with little result.