My own brigade would be disposed of to
intercept the enemy and prevent escape. McCook moved out as ordered,
and following his guides came by many devious turns to a fork in the
road, following which, they told him, a few minutes would bring him
upon the enemy. He halted the column, and with a small skirmishing
party went carefully forward. The guides pointed to a thicket from
which the Confederates could be seen. His instinct for topography
had made him suspect the truth, as he had noted the courses in
advancing, and crawling through the thicket, he looked out from the
other side upon what he at once recognized as the rear of his own
camp, and the tents of the very regiment from which he had sent an
officer to test the wagon-master's report. All the scouts had been
so deceived by the tangle of wooded hills and circling roads that
they fully believed they were still miles from our position; and,
bewildered in the labyrinth, they were sure the tents they saw were
the enemy's and not ours. The march had been through rain and mist,
through dripping thickets and on muddy roads, and the first impulse
was wrath at the erring scouts; but the ludicrous side soon
prevailed, and officers and men joined in hearty laughter over their
wild-goose chase.
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