[341] Federal power appeared to be most firmly rooted. One of these guerilla bands had taken up its quarters in the neighborhood of Louisville, and committed serious depredations, until it was finally dispersed on the 13th of June near Wilsonville. Another band was organized near Maysville, higher up along the course of the Ohio: it became necessary to send against it the troops which occupied Mount Sterling under Colonel de Courcy. The latter made such disposition of his forces as to cut off its retreat south, and while a detachment was menacing the Confederates in the direction of Flemingsburg, he proceeded toward the stream called Triplett's Creek to wait for them. The latter, in fact, came to look for a passage where he expected to meet them; a sharp action took place between them, and the Confederates had already lost some men when the two Federal forces which were to effect a junction having, by mistake, fired upon each other, the former availed themselves of the opportunity to make their escape. A third troop of Southern partisans exhibited still greater audacity. It consisted of about one hundred mounted men, who, passing through the small village of Elizabethtown, pursued their way north-west in the direction of the Ohio. Taking advantage of the state of the river, the waters of which were very low, they forded it on the 18th of June near Leavenworth, leaving some of the command on the left bank: these were to wait for them the next day a little higher up with a ferry-boat that was to take them back into Kentucky. It was their intention to employ these two days in making raids for horses in the State of Indiana; and they pushed forward as far as the town of Paoli, about twenty-eight miles in the interior, without meeting with any serious resistance. But the militia, having taken up arms everywhere along their route, soon compelled them to turn back. They arrived on the 19th at the point designated for the recrossing, when, instead of the friendly boat which was to carry them over, they found a small Federal steamer barring their passage, and were obliged to surrender, almost to a man, to the cavalry that had been sent in pursuit of them.
The war in Arkansas was reduced to the same insignificant proportions as in Kentucky. Marmaduke had hardly returned from his fruitless campaign against Cape Girardeau when the
