After the Battle of Buffington Island, Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan and about 800 remaining Confederate raiders turned inland from the Ohio River to escape the navy's gunboats and avoid pursuit by Union Brigadier General James M. Shackelford, who led about 600 cavalrymen and several hundred mounted Ohio militia. On the evening of July 19, 1863, near the head of Indian Run, Morgan ordered large campfires lit on a hilltop, leading Union observers to believe the Confederates had camped for the night. After partly surrounding the camp, Shackelford rested just east of Tuppers Plains, expecting to capture the raiders at dawn, but Morgan and his men quietly slipped away in the dark, riding around Tuppers Plains and their pursuers. When Union troops, including the 23rd Ohio Infantry, entered the campsite in the morning, they found only 49 sick and wounded raiders left behind to tend the fires. From Tuppers Plains, Morgan led his men west along the Athens-Meigs County line, rode through Alfred and Burlingham early on July 20, and turned southwest toward Eight Mile Island Ford at Cheshire. With Shackelford close behind, the raiders passed through Harrisonville, dispersed the local home guard, foraged horses and goods, then continued through Rutland to Kygerville, where Shackelford's advance caught Morgan's rear guard in a running fight as Morgan pressed on toward Cheshire hoping to cross the Ohio River.