[1] The battle was a small brigade-level conflict, and while the Confederates technically won with a Union withdrawal, it was considered militarily indecisive.

[6] When the left column of Union forces arrived, an officer believed that they were his own pickets returning, ordered his men not to fire and rode forth to bring them into the camp.

[3] In a piercing winter wind, fighting had raged for much of the sunlit morning as each side maneuvered on the hillside slopes, fields and woods to gain the advantage.

On the right flank, Milroy's force found a position in a mountain clearing, among the fallen timber, stumps and brush, which proved to be too difficult for the Confederate infantry to dislodge.

A Confederate artillery battery unlimbered and unleashed a "storm of round shot and canister among them, knocking their timber defences about their heads, and making their nest too hot to hold them..." The fighting on the right moved back and forth from advance to retreat, with the Union temporarily occupying the post, only to be driven off.

[7] After fighting for over seven hours[8] without taking the positionMilroy's troops withdrew, retreating to his camps at Green Spring Run near Cheat Mountain.

[6] But the failed Union assault convinced the Confederate higher command to reinforce Johnson's force in place at Camp Allegheny with five regiments through the remainder of the harsh winter of 1861–62.

However, the new fortification was soon abandoned on April 19, when Johnson left to rendezvous with the Confederate Army of Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson in advance of the Battle of McDowell.

Bierce wrote movingly about the sacrifice and suffering of the men in this little remembered battle in a remote area, and hauntingly about how little the battlefield had changed.