Six roads led out of the town in various directions. Of these the most northerly was the road from Bayou Sara. Passing behind the town its course continued toward the south along the river. Between these outstretched arms ran the road to Clinton, the Greenwell Springs road, by which the Confederates had come, the Perkins road, and the Clay Cut road. In numbers the opposing forces were nearly equal. The Confederates went into action with about 2,600, without counting the partisan rangers and militia, numbering 400 or 500 more. Williams had about 2,500 fighting men. He had eighteen guns, the Confederates eleven. On both sides the men were enfeebled by malaria and exposure; yet the Confederates had left their sick behind, while the Union force included convalescents that came out of the hospital to take part in the battle. "There were not 1,200," said Weitzel after the battle, "who could have marched five miles. None of our men had been in battle; very few had been under fire." Among the Confederates were many of the veterans of Shiloh and more of the triumphant defenders of Vicksburg. The advantages of position was slight on either side. On the one hand Williams was forced to post his left with regard to the expected attack of the _Arkansas_, so that in the centre his line fell behind the camps. To offset this his right rested securely on the gunboats. As it turned out the _Arkansas_ was not encountered, and the gunboats told off to meet her were therefore able to render material assistance on the left by their oblique fire across Williams' front. Breckinridge commanded four picked brigades, three selected from his own division and one of Martin L. Smith's Vicksburg brigades, the whole organized in two divisions, under Brigadier-Generals Charles Clark and Daniel Ruggles. Clark had the brigades of Brigadier-General Bernard H. Helm and Colonel Thomas B. Smith, of the 20th Tennessee, with the Hudson battery and Cobb's battery. Ruggles had the brigades of Colonel A. P. Thompson, of the 3d Kentucky, and Colonel Henry W. Allen, of the 4th Louisiana, with Semmes's battery. From right to left the order of attack ran, Helm, Smith, Thompson, Allen. Clark moved on the right of the Greenwell Springs road, and Ruggles on the left. Scott's cavalry was posted on the extreme left, four guns of Semmes's battery occupied the centre of Ruggles's division, while in Clark's centre were the four guns of the Hudson battery and one of Cobb's; the other two having been disabled in a panic during the night march before the battle. On the extreme right the Clinton road was picketed and held by a detachment of infantry and rangers and the remaining section of Semmes's battery.