[1] Confederate troops led by Brigadier-General Richard M. Gano successfully launched a surprise attack on a Union camp held by four companies of the 6th Kansas Cavalry, capturing prisoners and equipment.

As a Confederate victory, it also demonstrated the difficulty faced by Union units attempting to exert control over the state during the war's later stages.

In response to a shortage of both horses and forage, 200 Union cavalrymen of the Sixth Kansas Cavalry encamped at Massard Prairie, less than eight miles south of Fort Smith (Sebastian County).

[3] On July 26, Gano assembled 600 Texas and Native American[4][5] cavalrymen at Page's Ferry on the Poteau River, ten miles southwest of the Union camp.

[7] The Union troops were ordered to bring in the horses, secure the camp's flanks, and send messengers to Fort Smith to report the attack.

With two companies on the camp's left and two more on the right, and armed with superior breech-loading weapons, Mefford's command initially held its ground, repulsing all attacks.

After burning captured items that could not be removed, Gano's troops, with their prisoners and spoils, returned to camp twenty-four hours after they had departed the evening before.