With their plans in hand, he sent General Chalmers to meet the extreme eastern division and General Jackson to take the middle division, while he would personally direct the movement against the western column, nearest Tuscaloosa, in the hope of defeating it and then falling upon the rear of the main column. But this was not to be. When Forrest was ready for the move, he sent a courier to the Selma garrison and to Roddy’s cavalry, with full information of the whole plan; but the enemy captured the courier, and General Wilson changed his plan, and Forrest never knew why until after the war. While our forces, ignorant of the change of plan, were separately waiting for the three columns, we ran into Wilson’s cavalry, 8,000 strong, at Bogless Creek, a few miles north of Selma, and we had only about 200 men, mainly the escort. Forrest, thinking that we had run into a small force, threw us hurriedly into line and charged the advance, and the enemy thought they had struck the main Confederate column. We soon got into a mix-up, and they began to overlap us in every direction. The bulk of our little band was fighting and falling back in an effort to clear a passage, when we discovered that the enemy was making a move to cut General Forrest off from his troops. About ten of us went to his assistance. They had him surrounded, and he was fighting like a lion at bay. He killed several men--no one ever knew how many; and when he came out of the circle, he jumped his horse straight through a cordon of mounted men and escaped without a mark on his person. We fled the field and fell back to Selma, Ala. Here the Confederacy had been operating a small manufacturing plant for making arms, and the commander had only enough men to make a thin picket line for the protection of the plant. When Forrest arrived, he gathered every available man and put them in the trenches for the best possible defense. Forrest’s plan having failed, he was in ignorance as to where his troops were, and this gave the enemy a very dangerous advantage. Forrest felt that if the enemy had slipped by his commanders they would follow him up and strike him in the rear when the attack on Selma should begin. At any rate, it was certain that when the Union Army should reach Selma there would be a fight of some kind, regardless of odds. The escort took position in the trenches on the extreme left, the weakest point, and Roddy’s troops were placed on our right. Then the home guards and mixed multitude were strung out in a thin line along the remainder of the works, and instructed to hold the trenches at all hazards and never leave until they should receive orders to retire.