Advancing down the Dragoon Trail toward Fort Washita, Union Colonel William A. Phillips sent out an advance of approximately 350 men from the 14th Kansas Cavalry (led by Maj. Charles Willetts) and two howitzers (led by Captain Solomon Kaufman) to attack a Confederate outpost guarding the Trail's crossing of Middle Boggy River.

[3] Outnumbered and outgunned, the Confederates held off the Union cavalry attack for approximately 30 minutes before retreating to the rest of Lt. Col. John Jumper's Seminole Battalion, who were not at the main skirmish.

[4] The Union advance continued south toward Ft. Washita the next day, but when the expected reinforcements did not arrive Philips' Expedition into Indian Territory stalled on February 15, near old Stonewall.

Union Colonel William A Phillips led an expedition consisting of about 1,500 soldiers to divide the Confederate forces in Indian Territory along a line from Fort Gibson to the Red River.

[4] Colonel Phillips issued the following message to his troops before they departed from Fort Gibson to begin the expedition:[4] Circular Hdqrs.

the time has now come when you are to remember the authors of all your sufferings; those who started a needless and wicked war, who drove you from your homes, who robbed you of your property.

Watch over each other to keep each other right, and be ready to strike a terrible blow on those who murdered your wives and little ones by the Red Fork along the Verdigris or by Dave Farm Cowpens.

On February 11, Phillips paused near Edwards' Post, south of the Canadian River, and awaited the arrival of reinforcements from Fort Smith.

Maj. Willetts' advance group camped a short distance away on the night of February 12 and made final preparations to attack.

General Douglas H. Cooper, who had returned that night to his headquarters at Boggy Depot from Fort Washita, had sent a request to Texas for more reinforcements.

[D] On February 15, Phillips ordered his troops to burn Pontotoc Court House and all the Confederate and Chickasaw buildings in the town of Cochran.

However, the mistreatment of civilians and killings of wounded soldiers by the Union troops strengthened the resolve of Confederates and their sympathizers to continue the fight.

[1] In 2010, the National Park Service's American Battlefield Protection Program noted: "In 1993, CWSAC surveyors determined additional research, archeological investigation, and tribal consultation would be required to identify the full extent of the battlefield’s historic boundaries, and did not establish a Study Area for Middle Boggy Depot."

However, forensic research in 1988 enabled site manager Gwen Walker to positively identify some of the victims as soldiers of the 19th Arkansas Infantry.

The Confederates, though poorly armed, made a firm stand in a hot fight of 30 minutes in which 47 of their men were killed and others wounded.

Word of Confederate forces riding in from Boggy Depot, 12 miles southwest, caused a hurried retreat of the Federal troops toward Fort Gibson, north.