During the reconnaissance before the battle, Garfield chose Graveyard Point, the high ridge opposite Spurlock Creek, as his command post. In a letter to his wife Lucretia written several days later, he recalled that his force moved slowly up Middle Creek, sending scouts onto the hills on each side. After they rounded a hill and saw a plain before them, two or three hundred Confederate cavalry dashed out and then fell back behind a ridge that ran nearly halfway across the valley. Confederate officers rode to the ridge’s point and observed the Union force through field glasses, and Garfield, suspecting a large enemy force behind the ridge, ordered his personal escort of ten cavalrymen into the valley to draw fire. A volley from Clay’s company of the 1st Kentucky Cavalry confirmed that the Confederates held the position in strength. Garfield then ran up Graveyard Point to an isolated crag he called rock A, where he gained a clear view of the plain and surrounding hills, studied the Confederate position through his field glasses, and ordered two Kentucky companies to advance along the Graveyard Point ridge while two companies under Captain F.A. Williams forded Middle Creek and advanced along the ridge on the creek’s south side toward the enemy.