During the fall of 1862, Bates County had become a haven for guerrillas and Confederate recruiters, many of them frequenting a marshy tract on the Marais-des-Cygnes River southwest of Butler known as Hog Island. On Oct. 27, about 240 members of the First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry entered Bates County to drive out the rebels. They took over the farmstead of Enoch and Christiana Toothman, fortified it with fence rails, and named it Fort Africa. Reports said several hundred Southern sympathizers were nearby, so messengers went back to Kansas for reinforcements while the regiment planned to skirmish until stronger support arrived. Over the next two days, the black soldiers fought running clashes with bushwhackers. On Oct. 29, about 30 men under Capt. Andrew Armstrong and Lt. Richard Hinton were sent out as a diversion while a foraging party sought food. After the Kansas troops returned to camp, the rebels set the prairie on fire, and the Kansans lit a backfire to protect Fort Africa. Using the smoke as cover, rebel skirmishers drove the black pickets back to the fort, then withdrew in hopes of drawing the First Kansas into pursuit. Capt. Henry Seaman then sent out eight scouts, who went out of sight behind Island Mound. Lt. Joseph Gardner and about 20 men went to find them, joined them, and continued into the river bottom to examine a log house about half a mile away. Capt. Andrew Crew and Lt. Elkanah Huddleston also left camp without orders and joined the force. The black troops had been drawn away from camp into a rebel trap. About a mile from Fort Africa, some 130 rebel horsemen came out of the woods along the Marais-des-Cygnes River and charged them. The black detachment fell back toward Island Mound and a ravine, but the horsemen caught them before they reached cover. On the southern slope of Island Mound, the two sides met in hand-to-hand fighting amid prairie fires set by both sides. The outnumbered black soldiers, facing mounted attackers armed with shotguns, pistols, and sabers, fought back fiercely with bayonets and rifle butts. Some of the Southern horsemen rode through the Federal position and around the west side of Island Mound, where they met Capt. Armstrong's company coming to support Gardner's detachment. As the horsemen tried to flank Armstrong, Capt. Luther Thrasher's company took position on the northeast edge of the mound. When the Southerners moved around the north side, Thrasher opened fire, and Lts. Luther Dickerson and Patrick Minor blocked a rebel breakthrough there. The Southerners then retreated over Island Mound and back to Hog Island. The First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry lost eight killed and 11 wounded; Southern losses are unknown but were probably similar. The next day, Union reinforcements arrived, and the combined force advanced on Hog Island only to find it abandoned. Newspaper reports of the battle spread across the nation, and accounts of the black soldiers' bravery helped ease doubts about how former enslaved men might fight in battle.