In July, 1861, General J. D. Cox’s division was chasing General Henry
A. Wise’s Confederate forces up the Kanawha River, in West Virginia,
and to impede the rapid advance of the Union troops the bridge across
Pocotaligo Creek was destroyed. The stream was only a couple of rods
wide, but its banks were steep and the bed of the creek was too much
of a slough to allow fording by the wagon trains and artillery. The
regular army engineers wanted a few weeks’ time to prepare plans, and
considered it necessary to send to Cincinnati for tools and material
to construct a bridge. The General, being informed that the Eleventh
Ohio Infantry Regiment, then encamped at “Poco,” had a company
composed entirely of mechanics, sent for the captain, and, after a
short conference with that officer, directed him to put his men at
work. Commencing at nine o’clock in the morning, in seventeen hours a
substantial “bridge” was built across the creek, and which was used by
army wagons, cannons and soldiers for a long time, probably until the
war closed. A raft of logs, timbers from a deserted house, and poles
cut in the woods near by, were the materials used for the bridge, the
tools being a few axes and augers. These practical bridge-builders were
members of Company K, principally machinists, molders, etc., from the
shops of Lane & Bodley, of Cincinnati, the captain being their late
employer, P. P. Lane, afterward colonel of the regiment.