Scholarship
E. C. Bearss, "Loring, William Wing," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/05/05-00450.html.
Loring returned to the United States in the winter of 1860-1861, and on 22 March 1861 he was named to command the Department of New Mexico. He did not sympathize with the secession, but, believing in states' rights, he resigned his commission on 13 May 1861, and traveled east to offer his service to the Confederacy. President Jefferson Davis, familiar with Loring's distinguished record, had him named brigadier general to rank from 20 May 1861.
After the death of Brigadier General Robert Garnett in the engagement at Corrick's Ford, Loring was named on 20 July to command the northwestern army and charged with the defense of the western approaches to the Shenandoah Valley. Within a week of Loring's arrival on site, he was joined at Huntersville by General Robert E. Lee. Loring had higher rank than Lee in the "old army" and had led troops into battle in Mexico when Lee was a staffer. The two officers did not work well together, and the Confederates, plagued by heavy rains and rugged terrain, botched Lee's ambitious plans to rout the enemy from Cheat Mountain and recover the Tygart Valley (10-17 Sept.).
After the death of Brigadier General Robert Garnett in the engagement at Corrick's Ford, Loring was named on 20 July to command the northwestern army and charged with the defense of the western approaches to the Shenandoah Valley. Within a week of Loring's arrival on site, he was joined at Huntersville by General Robert E. Lee. Loring had higher rank than Lee in the "old army" and had led troops into battle in Mexico when Lee was a staffer. The two officers did not work well together, and the Confederates, plagued by heavy rains and rugged terrain, botched Lee's ambitious plans to rout the enemy from Cheat Mountain and recover the Tygart Valley (10-17 Sept.).
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