Saturday, 19th.—The head of the column advanced to a point some six or seven miles beyond London, on the road leading to Wildcat, but, for want of water, subsistence and forage, had to return to the wagon train, about four miles beyond London.
Zollicoffer’s advance had another skirmish with the enemy’s picket, resulting in the killing of one man on each side.
After marching in the rear of the wagon train to within eight miles of London, Colonel McNairy was ordered to move his battalion to the front. On reaching our General’s headquarters, about nightfall, encamped, as above named, some four miles from town, McNairy was ordered to send out scouting parties on both sides of the London-Wildcat road. Accordingly, a part of our battalion went southwest in the direction, of Somerset, while Allison’s Company went back to London, and thence about nine miles north-east in the direction of Booneville, capturing two men, two muskets and three horses on the way. Finding no organized force in that direction, Allison returned, by the way of London, to camp, some three miles from town, about daybreak next morning. Here the road forked—the left, leading by the way of Wildcat, Mount Vernon and Crab Orchard, to Camp Dick Robinson, and the right, to Richmond. We were now within ten miles of Wildcat.
