ickets had been previously stationed. On arriving in the vicinity of
these points--around which, without creating an alarm, it was desirable
to pass, in order to get near to the encampments and observe them
closely--they were found unoccupied. The party moved some three miles
further down the road without coming upon an enemy, although a day or
two before the picket posts had been thick in this quarter.

It was apparent that some plan for our benefit had caused this change,
and unusual caution became necessary. I had hoped to find some officers
quartered at the houses well in the rear of the reserve pickets, where
they would believe themselves secure, and to capture them, but I now
approached the houses, not with the expectation of making prisoners, but
of getting information. None of the citizens in that neighborhood had
ever seen any man in my party, and they would tell nothing, but their
alarm at seeing us, and evident anxiety to get rid of us, showed plainly
that they knew of the proximity of danger. At length, when in about six
hundred yards of the Cross-roads near "Flat Rock," I think it is called,
four miles from Nashville, and where it was confidently reported by our
informants that McCook's division was encamped, I halted and secreted
men and horses in the thick brush on the right hand side of the road,
and, with the guide, went forward on foot about a quarter of a mile,
until I suddenly heard the challenge of a picket. I judged from the
words I caught that it was the officer of the day making his rounds.
Soon a negro came down the road toward us, whom we caught and
questioned. He answered very glibly, and evinced too little fear, not to
excite suspicion that he came out to be captured with a made-up tale. He
said that there were ten men on picket at the Cross-roads. As a large
encampment was only a few hundred yards on the other side of this point,
his story did not seem credible. However, we had at last found an enemy.

Leaving five men to take care of the horses, in the thicket where they
were already concealed I carried the others through a wide meadow on the
right of the road which we had traveled (the Shelbyville and Nashville
pike) to the road which crossed it at "Flat Rock," striking the latter
about two hundred yards from the point of intersection. I was convinced
that the withdrawal of the pickets was part of a plan to entrap just
such scouting parties as ours, and that a strong force was in ambush at