Jenkins’s ragtag troops camped in a field east of town. “Some were clad in…butternut uniforms, while a majority had no uniforms at all,” reported the Cumberland Valley Journal. “A few…, with their stolen rig, looked very much like Pennsylvania farmers.” Most of the men were well mounted on horses taken along the march. Nevertheless, the Journal admitted that the Rebels were “pretty well behaved.”

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Carrying out their orders, Ferguson’s contingent of Jenkins’s brigade had turned east off Hogestown Road onto the Carlisle-Harrisburg Pike, when they spotted some Union troops. The Confederates were near Salem Church, a mile and half from their turn-off, and the Yankees they saw were deployed on high ground a little more than a mile farther east, at Sporting Hill. These Federals were part of Brigadier General Joseph F. Knipe’s two-regiment brigade–the 8th and 71st New York State National Guard–supported by an untested battery commanded by Captain Elihu S. Miller. Jackson’s battery exchanged fire with Miller’s guns, but the shelling had no effect, and the Federals withdrew east through their picket line at Oyster’s Point, a road junction midway between Sporting Hill and the forts.

Jackson’s battery limbered up and galloped after the Yankees as far as the Eppley (later Albright) farm house, less than half a mile from the point. He placed two guns in front of the house, with a line of supporting infantry several hundred yards to the southeast, but no further action occurred. Ferguson and his men remained in the vicinity of the Eppley house for the rest of the day. Knipe’s men remained near Oyster’s Point, while Knipe himself was ordered back to take command of Fort Washington.

Jenkins, meanwhile, after arranging things in Mechanicsburg, rode north to visit Ferguson. After conferring with the colonel, he rode southeastward to Peace Church, at the junction of St. John’s Church Road and Trindle Spring Road, to meet Colonel James Cochran and part of his 14th Virginia Cavalry. Some of Cochran’s men were in a patch of woods west of the Peace Church cemetery. The four Parrott rifles of Captain Griffin’s Maryland battery were in the road in front of the church, pointed east. Several cavalry companies were dismounted and deployed on each side of the building.

Cochran had scouts out grilling locals for information about the Federals and their whereabouts. They seized a Mr. Cromleigh, sexton of Peace Church, and his 16-year-old son, William. Both were imprisoned in the church.

As the prisoners arrived, Jenkins was looking through field glasses at the terrain to the east. Along a tree line about a mile away, he saw what he thought was a line of skirmishers. Perhaps it was Federal cavalry at Oyster’s Point; perhaps it was just some farmers. Jenkins handed the glasses to William Cromleigh and asked him to take a look and give his opinion. Young Cromleigh audaciously concluded that what the general had seen was just a line of fence posts on the Charles Rupp farm. Jenkins spat a few choice words at the boy and sent him away.

Convinced he had seen something more than fence posts, Jenkins ordered his artillery to fire toward Oyster’s Point. The first shell flushed out a Union cavalry picket, who hastily withdrew to an infantry picket line about a mile to the rear. Closer to Peace Church, a handful of advance infantry pickets took cover in a limestone quarry south of the pike.

This Yankee activity led Jenkins to believe the enemy was about to attack, so he ordered his men to take cover behind the cemetery wall and directed Griffin to fire a volley into the woods at Oyster’s Point. Miller’s Union battery–posted 200 yards east of the toll gate where Trindle Spring Road, on which Peace Church stood, met the Carlisle-Harrisburg Pike–soon answered. Most of the rounds fell well short of the Confederate position, where Griffin’s men kept firing until dusk. Toward evening, Jenkins withdrew his men and bivouacked near the John Neidig farm, closer to Mechanicsburg. One cavalry company was sent to camp just east of the town, with orders to maintain contact with the force at Carlisle during the night.

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