That night he sent a scouting party under Captain Phiebrick,[4] of twenty men of the Fifteenth Massachusetts Infantry, to cross at Harrison’s Island[5] and explore towards the town from that direction. This party did not long delay in Virginia, but returned to Headquarters by 10 o’clock p.m., reporting that they had proceeded unmolested to within one mile of Leesburg, discovering a camp of about thirty tents in the edge of a woods, approaching it within 25 rods unchallenged. General Stone now had all necessary information on which to base his brilliant strategy of holding Evans quiet in front of Edward’s Ferry with Gorman’s threatening force, while Colonel Baker made his brigade crossing at the island above, turning the Confederate left, forcing Evans to quick retreat to save his communications, while Gorman by a rapid advance would cut him off. Well planned, certainly, but Evans had been taking lessons. Upon receipt of the report of his scouts General Stone ordered Colonel Devens, with four companies of his regiment, Fifteenth Massachusetts, to cross at the island and destroy the camp found by Captain Phiebrick, which order he proceeded to execute, but found the supposed tents an illusion, the scouts having been deceived by a line of trees, the opening through which presenting, in an uncertain light, somewhat the appearance of tents. At 7 o’clock in the morning—the 21st—these enterprising gentlemen discovered Capt. W. L. Duff’s company (K, Seventeenth Mississippi) of forty men, who had been picketing the river about Smart’s Mill,[6] and arranged for their capture by putting Captain Phiebrick’s company at them in front, while two other companies were sent to outflank them and cut them off, but Duff and his men disregarded the “cut off.” They simply dropped on one knee, and when the enemy came, near enough (all the time answering Captain Duff’s challenge, “Who are you?” with the reply, “Friends”), fired a staggering volley into Deven’s three hundred, causing them also to disregard the “cut off” and retire to a better position, which they maintained for about twenty minutes, when they retreated to the thicket of woods on the right of the Jackson house. Colonel Devens in his report says Captain Duff’s men at his first advance retreated to a corn-field and got into a ditch or trench—another illusion caused by their kneeling to take aim. Captain Duff reported his loss as one man seriously and two slightly wounded, capturing three wounded prisoners and fourteen or fifteen stands of arms, while Colonel Devens says he lost one killed, nine wounded, and two missing.