On Monday, September 7, 1863, Confederate forces camped near Ashley's Mills when Union forces under Major General Frederick Steele, advancing from Brownsville, engaged the brigade of Colonel Robert C. Newton, C.S.A., and drove his troops back toward Little Rock to the river west of there. Steele had gathered information on the road by Shallow Ford and Ashley's Mills to the Arkansas River and the right of the Confederate works, which led him to take that route, and when his forces reached the Arkansas near Ashley's Mills, Davidson's cavalry in advance fought a sharp skirmish with the enemy. Colonel Archibald S. Dobbins, C.S.A., of the Arkansas Cavalry reported that Union troops feigned a crossing at Buck's Ford south of Terry's Ferry to distract the Confederates from the actual crossing west of Ashley's Mills near Terry's Ferry farther up the river. Dobbins said the enemy advanced in greatly superior force, that Colonel Newton crossed the river about 8 miles below Little Rock, and that the Union army encamped at Ashley's Mills and Terry's Ferry that night. From then until the evening of September 9, his scouts and the enemy skirmished continually, and on the evening of the 9th Union cavalry and artillery moved in strength to Buck's Ford and built campfires within sight of the ford while, about 10 o'clock that night, their artillery was moving to Terry's Ferry and lumber was being thrown out as if to build a bridge there. Dobbins reported to Major General Price that the enemy was before him in heavy force of infantry, cavalry, and artillery and that he would be unable to prevent their crossing.