Gen. Hugh Judson Kilpatrick repulsed an attack by the small Confederate cavalry corps under Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler, but abandoned its attempt to destroy railroads and rescue Union prisoners of war.

On November 26, Wheeler caught up with two lagging Union regiments, attacked their camp, chased them to the larger force and prevented Kilpatrick from destroying the Briar Creek trestle.

When Kilpatrick discovered that the Union prisoners at Camp Lawton had been taken to other unknown sites, he began to move southwest to join up with Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's headquarters.

As Kilpatrick's main force crossed the creek, the 5th Ohio Cavalry regiment, under Col. Thomas T. Heath, supported by two artillery pieces, fought a rearguard action from behind a barricade of rails, severely punishing Wheeler's troopers with canister fire and then burned the bridge behind them.

Wheeler soon crossed and followed, but a Union brigade behind barricades at Reynolds' Plantation halted the Rebels' drive, eventually forcing them to retire.