The road from Commerce to New Madrid was, for the most part, a dilapidated corduroy, tumbling about a broken causeway through a swamp. M. Jeff. Thompson, "Brigadier-General of the Missouri State Guard," designed to hold a "very important session of the Missouri Legislature," at New Madrid, on March 3d--a session which was to last, however, but one day. When General Pope moved out from Commerce, on February 28th, Schuyler Hamilton in front, Thompson undertook to oppose the advance with a detachment of his irregular command and three light pieces of rifled artillery. The Seventh Illinois Cavalry charged, captured the three guns, took two officers and several enlisted men prisoners, and chased Thompson and the rest of his band sixteen miles, almost to the outskirts of New Madrid. Dragging through the mud by short marches, Hamilton's division reached New Madrid on the morning of March 3d. Deploying, with the Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth Ohio in front as skirmishers, Hamilton marched upon the town, pushed the enemy's pickets back into the intrenchments, developed the line of intrenchment, drew the fire of its armament--twenty-four, thirty-two, and sixty-four pounders and field-pieces. The gunboats of Commodore Hollins' fleet took part in the engagement. The water in the river was so high that it lifted the guns on the boats above the banks. The reconnoissance developed the fact that the intrenchments could be carried by assault, but could not be held so long as the gunboats could lay the muzzles of their heavy guns upon the river-bank and sweep the whole interior.