On August 29, 1862, Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne's division, the vanguard of Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith's infantry, moved from Barbourville toward Bobtown after Confederate Col. John Scott's victory over Col. Leonidas Metcalfe at Big Hill on August 23. Anxious to leave pro-Union Barbourville and a countryside short of supplies, the division's two brigades of eight infantry regiments and two four-gun artillery batteries marched out with Cleburne leading Gen. Benjamin Jefferson Hill's brigade and Col. Preston Smith's brigade following. After Hill's brigade reached Bobtown late that day, Cleburne, uneasy about relying on Scott's cavalry pickets, shifted his infantry north of the Bobtown intersection and placed the men on high ground along both sides of the Old State Road, with pickets in front, and they slept in line of battle with weapons ready. That night Metcalfe's cavalry, still uncertain of Confederate strength south of Richmond, advanced from the north hoping to gather information and attacked Scott's pickets south of Kingston, driving them back toward Cleburne's infantry along the Old State Road. Pursuing what Metcalfe expected was a small, shaken cavalry force, the Union horsemen instead came within twenty-five paces of Hill's infantry, which opened fire, emptied several saddles, stopped the advance, and repelled a renewed dismounted attack before Metcalfe withdrew. Before dawn on August 30, at about 4:30, a Confederate cavalry screen under Capt. William L. Garriott rode north on the Old State Road, followed by Hill's brigade and then Preston Smith's brigade about 500 yards behind. Just north of Kingston, near the intersection of the Irvine-Lancaster Pike and the present-day routes of U.S. 421 and Crooksville Road, Garriott's men struck Union pickets, who fell back toward Mt. Zion Church. Seeing Union infantry deploying near the church, Garriott sent word to Cleburne, who hurried forward, deployed artillery, and opened fire on the Union line near Mt. Zion Church, beginning the Battle of Richmond.