Loring's force gathered in late August at Red Sulphur Springs and Grey Sulphur Springs and the Narrows of New River - the resort and military depots strung along the southwestern mountain country. Confederate Brigadier General Albert G. Jenkins rode ahead with about 550 cavalry, beginning his trans-Allegheny raid on August 22. Loring's main column began moving north on September 6. He marched through Princeton and Flat Top Mountain and reached Raleigh Court House - today's Beckley - on September 9 to find the Union outpost there evacuated. The Confederate plan was simple: take Fayette Court House and Gauley Bridge first, drive the Union army downriver, and capture Charleston before Federal reinforcements could arrive from the north.

On September 10, Loring split his command. One brigade swung around Fayetteville on a mountain path to attack Union Colonel Edward Siber's right flank and rear. The remainder made a frontal attack via the Princeton-Raleigh Road. The first contact came south of Fayetteville between 11:00 a.m. and noon. The 45th Virginia Infantry pressed the frontal attack from two in the afternoon until dark. The flanking force missed its target - reaching Siber's right flank rather than his rear - but the day's fighting was savage. The 34th Ohio under Colonel John Toland took 16 killed and 57 wounded near the Fayetteville-Gauley Bridge road. By 9:00 p.m. the fighting stopped. Between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m. on September 11, Siber slipped his men out of Fayetteville and moved north. The Confederate pursuit the next morning was slowed by trees that retreating Federals had felled across the road. At Cotton Hill, Union howitzers placed in a strong defensive position drove the pursuing Confederates back. Through the afternoon, skirmishes occurred at Loup Creek, Armstrong's Creek, Miller's Ferry, Gauley Ferry, and Cannelton.

On September 12, Lightburn reached Camp Piatt, the Union outpost ten miles east of Charleston, and reunited his command. He believed about 8,000 Confederates were in the valley - an overestimate by roughly 3,000 - and feared Confederate General John B. Floyd's partisan force was waiting downriver from Charleston at the mouth of the Coal River. Just after midnight on September 13, Lightburn began moving his army into Charleston. He positioned his forces to defend both banks of the Elk River, where the James River and Kanawha Turnpike crossed on a single suspension bridge. Loring's pursuing column hit the Union pickets around 9:30 a.m. Colonel John McCausland led the Confederate advance on the north bank of the Kanawha; Brigadier General John S. Williams used artillery and sharpshooters from the south bank. By 1:00 p.m., both sides were dueling with cannon. At 2:00 p.m., Lightburn ordered his troops to fall back through the town, burning supply depots they could not haul away. By 3:30 p.m., all Union troops had crossed the Elk. The suspension bridge was set ablaze and its cables cut.

Lightburn took the Ripley Road northwest rather than the Charleston-Point Pleasant road that paralleled the Kanawha, where Williams's artillery on the south bank could harass him for miles. He camped at Sissonville the night of September 13, marched on to Ripley and Ravenswood the following day, and crossed the Ohio River there. His army reached Point Pleasant by the evening of September 18. Loring did not pursue beyond the Elk - his own supply trains had fallen behind during the chase, and he judged it 'useless to pursue further.' He occupied Charleston for about forty days, took inventory of captured Federal supplies, and waited for reinforcements that never came. On September 19, Lightburn's force was attached to Major General Horatio Wright's Department of the Ohio. Major General Jacob Cox was ordered back to retake the valley. By October 9, the Confederates began withdrawing. On October 15, Confederate leadership removed Loring from command, citing his lack of cooperation with neighboring units; he was replaced by Brigadier General John Echols. By October 30, Cox's Union troops were back in Charleston. The brief Confederate possession of the Kanawha Valley was over, and the war's western Virginia theater would remain Union-controlled for the duration.