During a dangerous moment in the fighting, General Nathan Bedford Forrest, positioned west of the battlefield across the Lexington-Huntingdon Road and roughly opposite a split-rail fence, learned that Colonel John Fuller's Ohio Brigade was advancing on the Confederates from behind. He quickly gathered his escort and part of Colonel George Dibrell's 8th Tennessee Cavalry under Major Jeffery Forrest, about 125 mounted men in all, and added a handful of retreating soldiers to this small improvised force. Forrest placed them in line between the advancing Union infantry and his artillery. When Sergeant Nat Baxter protested that he was entirely unarmed, with neither gun, pistol, nor sword, Forrest ordered him into line anyway because he wanted to make as big a show as possible. With a yell, the small Confederate line charged, and the unexpected attack startled and briefly halted the Union regiment. That moment of hesitation gave the Confederates time to fasten their artillery to the waiting limbers, mount up, and gallop south, many riding east of the split-rail fence into a shallow ravine before reaching the Lexington-Huntingdon Road and escaping.