On the Morning of Septeber 24th I leared that the garrison at 'Evening Shade' had been withdrawn taking their arms with them. Orders were forwarded to me to rejoin the division. During the early morning of the 25th of September we rejoined the division. We were then put on the road to Ironton from Fredericktown. During the advance I was ordered, together with Slayback, to guard the western apporaches against any possible operations from the west. The bulk of my men was to remain with the column as most of these men were unarmed. Together with Slayback we mustered approximately 500 armed men. On the afternoon of the 27th, roughly at 3:00 P.M. we were assigned the task of screening to the north for any possibility of evacuation from Ironton or Pilot Knob. When General Clark's brigade was repulsed we were summoned by courier to attack (demonstrate?) on Fort Davidson for the purpose of drawing fire from them. We could do nothing more than wheel and shoot until driven off by direct Artillery fire and intense musket fire. Our casualties were minimal. We returned back to our posts and remained there through the night. At 2 o'clock (am) we heard an explosion coming from within Fort Davidson. We were unsure as to what was going on so we remained in position as we received no orders or any indication that the Yanks were leaving.