Thompson had cunningly magnified the number of his troops, and Plummer and Carlin were both impressed with the idea that he had somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 or 6,000 men and was likely to be joined by Gen. Hardee's column from Pocahontas, Ark., with many more.
Grant, with that accurate knowledge of his enemy which was one of his conspicuous traits and never failed him at any time during the war, informed them that Thompson had only between 2,000 and 3,000 men. As usual in Grant's operations, the columns moved on time and arrived when expected.
Col. Carlin moved Oct. 20 from Pilot Knob with about 3,000 men made up of the 21st Ill., Col. Alexander; 33d HI., Col. C. E. Hovey; 38th Ill., Maj. Gilman; 8th Wis., Col. Murphy; part of the 1st Ind. Cav., Col. Conrad Baker, and some of the guns of the 1st Mo. Art., under the charge of Maj. Schofield.
Col. Plummets column, about 1,500 strong, consisted of the 17th Ill., Col Ross; 20th Ill., Col. Marsh; 11th Mo., Lieut.-Col. Panabaker; Lieut. White's section of Taylor's Illinois Battery, and two companies of cavalry commanded by Capts. Stewart and Lan-gen.
Col. Plummer moved to Dallas, on Johnston's line of retreat, and there sent through a messenger to Col. Carlin, stating where he was and what his intentions were, so that the two forces could cooperate. The messenger was captured by some of the Missourians, and therefore Thompson came into possession of the plans of his enemies. He moved back with his train until he saw it safely on its way to Greenville, and then returned with his command toward Fredericktown to accommodate his opponents with a fight if they desired it and to gain time for his train to get back to Bloomfield and New Madrid.
Not finding Thompson at Dallas, Col. Plummer moved up to Fredericktown, arriving there at noon, Monday, Oct. 21, and found that Col. Carlin had arrived with his forces about 8 o'clock in the morning. There was immediately one of those squabbles over rank which were so frequent on both sides during the early part of the war and not absent from its history at any time.
In spite of being a younger man than Col. Plummer, a younger Captain in the Regular Army, and in spite of Plummer's experience in the Mexican War and at Wilson's Creek, Carlin insisted upon the command of the whole, upon the grounds that he had been commissioned a Colonel Aug. 15, and by the Governor of Illinois; while Plummer's commission was from Fremont. Carlin insisted that he had a plan by which Thompson's whole force could be captured, but was at length induced to yield the command to Plummer, who went ahead with the combined force to attack Thompson, leaving Carlin, who was exhausted and ill, in town with a portion of his command.
Possibly, what helped induce Carlin to yield was the knowledge of an agreement between Col. Plummer and Col. Ross, of the 17th Ill., who outranked both of them, that if Carlin persisted in his claim, Ross should assert his seniority and take command of the whole. Carlin retained the 8th Wis. and two 24-pound howitzers in Fredericktown to hold the place, while Plummer took the rest of the force and started out in search of Thompson.