The story was
confirmed, and the matter was brought to me for action. Puzzled but
not convinced, and thinking that as McCook's command was new to the
country, it would be better to send some one who was used to
scouting in the mountains, I ordered a lieutenant named Bontecou, of
the Second Kentucky Regiment, to take a small party and examine the
case anew. Bontecou had done a good deal of successful work in this
line, and was regarded as a good woodsman and an enterprising scout.
He too came back at nightfall, saying that there could be no mistake
about it. He had crept close to the sentinels of the camp, had
counted the tents, and being challenged by the guard, had made a run
for it through the thicket, losing his hat. The position of the
enemy was, by all the reports, about three miles from us, diagonally
in rear of our right flank. It now seemed that it must be true that
some detachment had been delayed in joining the retreating column,
and had found itself thus partly cut off by our advance. I therefore
ordered McCook to start at earliest peep of day, upon the
Chestnutburg road (on which the wagon-master had been foraging), and
passing beyond the hostile detachment, attack from the other side,
it being agreed by all the scouting parties that this would drive
the enemy toward our camp.
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