d found General Sherman at the picket-posts with a brigade
in line. The same evening, in obedience to an order from General
Sherman, Buckland sent him a written report. This advance was the attack
upon Cleburne's brigade reported by General Hardee.

Saturday the cavalry were moving camps, in obedience to the order of
reassignment. Batteries were moving about under the same order. Buckland
and Hildebrand anxiously visited their picket-lines and observed the
parties of hostile cavalry hovering in the woods beyond. Some of the men
on picket claimed they had seen infantry. Captain Mason of the
Seventy-seventh Ohio, on picket, observed at daylight, Saturday morning,
numbers of rabbits and squirrels scudding from the woods to and across
his picket-line. General Sherman was advised, but he had no cavalry to
send out; the Fifth had gone, and the Fourth not yet reported. He
enjoined Buckland and Hildebrand to be vigilant, strengthen their
pickets, and be prepared for attack. Additional companies were sent out
to increase the pickets, Buckland established a connecting line of
sentries from the picket reserve to camp, to communicate the first alarm
on the picket-line, and instructed his officers to be prepared for a
night attack.

Saturday afternoon, General Prentiss, in consequence of information
received from his advance guard, sent Colonel Moore, of the Twenty-first
Missouri, with three companies from his regiment, to reconnoitre the
front. The line of his march being oblique to the line of the camp, led
him out beyond the front of Sherman's line. He marched in that direction
three miles, saw nothing, and returned to camp. The oblique direction of
his march prevented his running into Hardee's lines. Prentiss, assured
there was some activity--a cavalry reconnoissance in his front--pushed
his pickets out a mile and a half and reinforced them. McClernand, the
same day, went out with Colonel McPherson and a battalion of cavalry on
a reconnoissance toward Hamburg and a short distance out on the road to
Corinth, and saw a few hostile scouts back of Hamburg.

General Lewis Wallace's reconnoitring parties developed the presence of
a considerable force at Purdy and Bethel, on the railroad. Getting
information, Friday night, of signs of preparation for movement by this
force, an order was sent to the brigade at Adamsville to form line at
daybreak. The other brigades reached Adamsville at an early hour, and
all remained prepared to repe