Colonel Duke had led our line of battle into action, and now the entire line entered the conflict. Rebel and Yankee were at it, hot and heavy, still the General would not permit the scouts to advance, but held us under fire of the artillery, in reserve, as he said. But before long our time came.
When it came the two lines were frightfully near each other. The Yankee cavalry regiment was on the rise before us when the General, calling the attention of the scouts, said, “Boys, yonder are those horses I’ve been promising you.” And he added, “Be very particular how you take them, for you observe that each horse has an armed man upon him.” Then, giving Captain Tom some instructions, he ordered us to advance, which we did at a brisk canter. Already the Yankee lines, in many places broken, were reeling and staggering like drunken men. We entered the lists just in time to fire the ending broadside and receive an unconditional surrender. We likewise received the horses the General had presented, besides a great variety of “other things” that abound in Yankee camps. The engagement had lasted only an hour and ten minutes.
The forces surrendered by Colonel Moore were the One Hundred and Fourth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, One Hundred and Sixth and One Hundred and Eighth Ohio Infantry, and the Second Indiana Cavalry, making a total of two thousand three hundred prisoners. Sixty or seventy of the enemy were killed, and twice that number wounded. Our loss was nearly fifty killed and seventy or eighty wounded. Our captured horses were put in charge of some of the scouts, and the rest of us were ordered to watch the movements of the Yankee brigade that was in supporting distance of the one just captured. Though this brigade had heard our cannonading, we had struck so quickly and rapidly that they could not, at least did not, come up in time.
After marching over a mile we met the enemy’s advance-guard, and the main force was marching in line of battle a short distance in the rear of his advance. We drove the advance back in confusion upon the main column. Then a portion of our company held the ground, while the others withdrew to the rear and went into ambush, there to wait the moment to strike.