In the early evening of August 30, 1862, weary Union soldiers fighting a running battle from Kingston to Richmond were forced to stop when Confederate cavalry blocked the Lancaster, Tate's Creek, and Lexington roads out of Richmond. As light faded, Confederate cavalry and artillery crushed scattered Union resistance, leaving the Union soldiers little choice but to surrender. The next day, Union prisoners, captured wagons, and artillery were marched back into Richmond, where Col. Preston Smith's brigade took charge of the prisoners. The defeated army was confined on the courthouse lawn, then enclosed by a tall ornate cast iron fence, and there 4,303 soldiers, nearly two-thirds of the Union force engaged in the battle, spent about a week before being paroled and sent home. The courthouse also served as a hospital during the battle after Dr. Bernard Irwin, the Union medical director, took possession of it before the fighting began, and once the battle started he reported that wounded were pouring in as fast as limited transport would allow. In the days after the battle, the women of Richmond and Madison County came daily to this and other temporary hospitals to help care for the overwhelming number of wounded, and in 1894 veterans of the 71st Indiana sent a resolution to the mayor of Richmond thanking the townspeople for their kindness to the wounded in the days and weeks after the battle. After the capture of the Union prisoners, Colonel Scott reportedly told Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, "General, I've got them. I have not counted them, but I have a ten acre lot full," and Capt. Frank T. Ryan recalled that the prisoners filled the courthouse building and the enclosure around it, with more prisoners than the guards had men to watch them.