Colonel Orlando H. Moore held the main Federal defensive position with about 200 men of the 25th Michigan Infantry on a narrow neck of land flanked by steep bluffs above Green River, where a stockade, water-filled ditch, abatis, and forward rifle pit strengthened the line. Outnumbered by Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan's Confederates by three or more to one, Moore placed 50 to 60 riflemen in the forward pit with orders to resist the first assault and then withdraw. At sunrise Union pickets opened fire on the approaching Confederates, and Morgan's battery fired from a nearby knoll into the rifle pit, causing casualties. At 7 AM Morgan demanded surrender in front of the line, but Moore refused, saying that because it was the Fourth of July he could not entertain the proposition. Lacking artillery, Moore ordered his sharpshooters to fire on the Confederate gunners and Major Ed Byrne's battery was silenced. Dismounted cavalry from the 7th and 11th Kentucky under Adam Johnson then rushed the rifle pit and the main Union position, and the battle became savage, with heavy close-range fire and hand-to-hand fighting. Colonel Basil Duke sent the 5th Kentucky to reinforce the attack, and the Confederates made eight charges in all. The 11th Kentucky tried to flank the Union line down the bluff, and its commander, Colonel D. Waller Chenault, was shot from his horse just a few feet from the Federal line. When the Confederates were about to outflank him, Moore sounded his bugle, leading the Confederate commanders to think reinforcements had arrived, though none were within thirty miles. After losing 17 commissioned officers and more than sixty men killed and wounded, Morgan withdrew and bypassed the position, while Moore lost 6 killed and 24 wounded in a fight that lasted 3 1/2 hours.
