Accordingly, early on the 9th of April, Banks gave orders for the wagon train to be set in motion toward Grand Ecore, escorted by Lee with the cavalry and Dickey's colored brigade, and put his army into position at Pleasant Hill to cover the movement.
Churchill with Tappan and Parsons had accomplished the march of twenty miles from Keachie to Mansfield too late in the evening of the 8th to take any part in the battle of Sabine Cross-Roads. At two o'clock the next morning he marched toward the front in order to arrive on the ground in time to renew the fight. By the earliest light of morning Taylor saw that his adversary had already left the field. Then he promptly advanced his whole force, feeling his way as he went. Green led with the cavalry; next came Churchill with his own division, under Tappan; then Parsons, Walker, and Polignac. The morning was wellnigh spent, when Taylor with the head of his column drew near Pleasant Hill and discovered his adversary in position. The last of his infantry did not come up until after noon. Churchill's men were so fagged by their early start and their long march of forty-five miles since the morning of the 8th that Taylor thought it best to give them two hours' rest before attempting anything more.
Two miles to the southward, across the main road, stood Emory, firmly holding the right of the Union lines. Dwight's brigade formed the extreme right flank, thrown back and resting on a wooded ravine that runs almost parallel with the road. Squarely across the road and somewhat more advanced, in the skirt of the wood before the village, commanding an open approach, was posted Shaw's brigade, detached from Mower's Third division, to strengthen the exposed front of Emory. Benedict occupied a ditch traversing a slight hollow, the course of which was nearly perpendicular to the Logansport road, on which his right rested in echelon behind the left of Shaw. Benedict's front was generally hidden by a light growth of reed and willow, but his left was in the open and was completely exposed. Grow's battery, under Southworth, held the hill between Dwight and Shaw, and Closson's battery, under Franck Taylor, was planted so as to fire over the heads of Benedict's men. McMillan's brigade was in reserve behind Dwight and Shaw. The position thus occupied by Emory was a short distance north of the village in front of the fork of the roads that lead to Mansfield and to Logansport.