Early on the morning of May 12, 1863, McPherson, acting on Grant's message to move "with all activity," ordered his 17th Corps out of its encampment on the Roach farm, ten miles to the southwest, toward Raymond to complete the east-west alignment of the Union army for its strike against the railroad linking Vicksburg and Jackson. Thick clouds of dust enveloped the men as they moved along the Utica Road, and by mid-morning the vanguard crested the ridge overlooking Fourteenmile Creek. In Raymond, Brig. Gen. Gregg remained unaware of the impending threat because Pemberton's poorly written order had sent Col. Wirt Adams' cavalry to Edwards on May 11 instead of to Raymond to support him. Early on May 12, Gregg therefore sent out a makeshift scouting force of state troops and youths from the neighborhood, and it soon returned reporting about 2,500 to 3,000 Federals approaching on the Utica Road. Having been advised by Lt. Gen. Pemberton that the enemy was marching to Edwards Station, Gregg concluded that the force to the southwest was probably a brigade on a marauding expedition screening the right flank of the main attack on Edwards. He decided to lure this supposed lone brigade into the cul-de-sac formed by the horseshoe turn of Fourteenmile Creek. The 7th Texas Infantry, posted near the Utica Road bridge at the creek, was to serve as bait and as the anvil in a hammer-and-anvil tactic, while the hammer would be a large regiment, the 3d Tennessee Infantry, 548 strong, followed by the 50th Tennessee Infantry and then the 10th and 30th Tennessee Consolidated Infantry in an en echelon attack. Gregg's three cannon were posted 850 yards north of the bridge, but the trap was laid for not one brigade, but six brigades in two divisions.
