At 10:00 p.m. the 22d and 37th New York regiments quietly marched out in an attempt to cut off the Rebel cavalry. The column marched in silence for five miles but saw nothing. At 4:00 a.m. the force returned without incident.

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June 29 dawned stormy, but Jenkins’s men returned to their probing action. The artillery advanced on parallel roads, pausing to fire occasionally, one battery on Trindle Spring Road, the other on Gettysburg Pike to the south. Eventually, the Confederates established an eastward-facing battle line running generally from the Eppley farm southeast to Gettysburg Pike, with pickets about 100 yards out in front. In the Rebels’ path was an advance Federal line of 150 men–consisting of one company each from the 8th, 23d, and 56th New York and commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John Elwell of the 23d. The Union line ran generally north and south from Oyster’s Point and a patch of woods a bit to the west.

Miller’s Union battery opened fire from behind Elwell’s line. Jenkins’s advance, with its strong artillery support, soon persuaded the Federals to withdraw several hundred yards. About 11:00 a.m. one or two companies of Lieutenant Colonel Vincent A. Witcher’s 34th Virginia Cavalry Battalion, accompanied by a cannon, galloped boldly from near the Eppley farm to Oyster’s Point. There they ran into a hot fire from the Federal pickets and Miller’s battery, and were blocked by a log barricade. When the Confederates stopped briefly near the hotel, one of them was shot from his horse, and another was also wounded.

This seemingly futile Confederate sortie had been designed to divert Union attention so Jenkins could reconnoiter the Northern position from Slate Hill on the Union left. There, about noon, Jenkins studied the Federal defenses. Based on this reconnaissance, Ewell ordered Rodes to prepare to capture Harrisburg with his division on June 30.

June 28 and 29 had been exciting and dangerous for people living near Oyster’s Point. Zacheus Bowman remembered that bullets “were flying all around…[and] we got behind an old stone kitchen.” Seeing that a New York soldier was running behind him, he yelled, ” ‘What’s up?’ Just then a bullet struck his cap and knocked it right off his head. He said ‘Now I guess you see what is up?’” Bowman reported that the Rebels reached the toll gate at Oyster’s Point, but got no farther.

W.L. Gorgas watched Jenkins’s party from his home at the intersection of Lisburn and Simpson’s Ferry Roads, southeast of the point. He estimated that there were about 60 men moving within three-quarters of a mile of the Federal picket post on Cedar Spring Run near his house. No civilian remembered any Confederates advancing farther east than Limekiln Lane, though some Rebels did reach that point on the 29th.

While Jenkins’s men were carefully feeling out Harrisburg’s defenses, Robert E. Lee was trying to discern what the Army of the Potomac was up to. Late on the 28th he learned that Hooker’s Federals were approaching South Mountain on the Maryland-Pennsylvania border, so he decided to concentrate his army east of the mountains, and ordered Ewell’s corps to rejoin the army at either Cashtown or Gettysburg.

By 3:00 a.m. on June 30, only Jenkins’s cavalry brigade, along with some artillery, remained near Harrisburg. Cochran’s 14th Virginia Cavalry had left for Carlisle, but part or all of Ferguson’s command was near Salem Church on the Carlisle-Harrisburg Pike, with pickets near the west edge of Sporting Hill.

Murray’s Curtin Guards entered Mechanicsburg on the morning of June 30 to find the Confederate troops gone. General Smith then ordered Brigadier General John Ewen to take the 22d and 37th New York regiments, accompanied by Miller’s battery, on a reconnaissance along the Carlisle-Harrisburg Pike. Preceded by Lieutenant Frank Stanwood’s company of 3d U.S. Cavalry scouts, Ewen’s brigade departed at 9:45 a.m. Smith and several members of his staff, including Rufus King, accompanied Ewen.

The brigade inched forward for three hours and reached the Eppley farm, near which Jenkins had his line on the 29th, but no Rebels turned up. At Oyster’s Point, the brigade met Stanwood’s men, who excitedly reported that elements of Jenkins’s brigade had been encountered near Silver Spring Creek, several miles to the west. Ewen turned his brigade around and headed back against the Confederates. It was early in the afternoon, but Ewen’s column advanced so slowly that it was 4:00 p.m. before it arrived at the junction of the Carlisle-Harrisburg Pike and Sporting Hill Road, on the east side of Sporting Hill.

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