After organizing an army of roughly 11,700 at Monterey, Virginia, Loring detached two brigades under Henry R. Jackson and William B. Taliaferro to the north, to fortify Frank Mountain, and defend the approach from Cheat Mountain. Loring moved the rest of his army, the brigades of S.R. Anderson, Daniel S. Donelson, and William Gilham, south to Huntersville. Four days after his arrival at Huntersville, Loring was joined by Colonel Robert E. Lee, who had been sent by Richmond to western Virginia with the diplomatic role of inspecting and consulting. Loring, a Mexican War veteran who outranked Lee at the time, saw Lee as Richmond's attempt to look over his shoulder, and grew resentful of his presence. Loring and Lee moved the southern portion of their army to Valley Mountain, near Mace, and down the Tygart Valley to the Battle of Cheat Mountain in September 1861. Loring soon acquired the nickname, "Old Blizzards" for his battle cry, "Give them blizzards, boys! Give them blizzards!" Following that debacle, they moved south into Greenbrier County to reenforce the troops of the Kanawha Division under former Virginia governors John B. Floyd and Henry Alexander Wise, then-at Sewell Mountain and Meadow Bluff. Lee was re-called back to Richmond in late October. Loring and the men remained for a short period before abandoning the mountainous region too, marching into, and down the Shenandoah Valley to join Stonewall Jackson at Winchester.