On the evening of January 19, 1862, Union forces pursuing the beaten Confederates halted at a small nearby log school that the Confederates had used as headquarters for their pickets before the battle. Union soldiers rested there while preparing to assault the Confederate earthworks in the morning, as Federal artillery deployed on Moulden's Hill and fired throughout the night, discharging over 300 rounds into the fortified Confederate camp at Beech Grove and the steamboat Noble Ellis, which was ferrying Confederates across the Cumberland River. When the Federals assaulted the earthworks at Beech Grove the next morning, they found them deserted because the Confederate army had escaped across the river. Later, Union Colonel Speed Fry asked General George Thomas why he had not sent in a demand for surrender the night before, and Thomas replied, "Hang it Fry, I never once thought of it."