Upon receipt of the report of his scouts General Stone ordered Colonel Devens, with four companies of his regiment, Fifteenth Massachusetts, to cross at the island and destroy the camp found by Captain Phiebrick, which order he proceeded to execute, but found the supposed tents an illusion, the scouts having been deceived by a line of trees, the opening through which presenting, in an uncertain light, somewhat the appearance of tents.
At 7 o’clock in the morning—the 21st—these enterprising gentlemen discovered Capt. W. L. Duff’s company (K, Seventeenth Mississippi) of forty men, who had been picketing the river about Smart’s Mill,[6] and arranged for their capture by putting Captain Phiebrick’s company at them in front, while two other companies were sent to outflank them and cut them off, but Duff and his men disregarded the “cut off.” They simply dropped on one knee, and when the enemy came, near enough (all the time answering Captain Duff’s challenge, “Who are you?” with the reply, “Friends”), fired a staggering volley into Deven’s three hundred, causing them also to disregard the “cut off” and retire to a better position, which they maintained for about twenty minutes, when they retreated to the thicket of woods on the right of the Jackson house.
Colonel Devens in his report says Captain Duff’s men at his first advance retreated to a corn-field and got into a ditch or trench—another illusion caused by their kneeling to take aim. Captain Duff reported his loss as one man seriously and two slightly wounded, capturing three wounded prisoners and fourteen or fifteen stands of arms, while Colonel Devens says he lost one killed, nine wounded, and two missing.
General Evans now sent Lieutenant-Colonel Jenifer with four companies of infantry, two from the Eighteenth and one each from the Seventeenth and Thirteenth Mississippi Regiments, and three companies of cavalry, Captain W. B. Ball, W. W. Mead, and Lieutenant Morehead, to support Captain Duff, making in all a force of 320 men on the battleground, while Colonel Devens reports his force strengthened to 753; and about 11 o’clock he again advanced, but was met in strong contention by Jenifer’s people for about an hour, when the Federals retired; and now was their best time to recross the river, for Hunton with his Eighth Virginia (except Wampler’s company, left at the burnt bridge to look out for McCall) was coming at a double-quick with 375 more people in bad temper.