It was clear that Brown had been true, and that it was from him Gen. Marshall had received this trustworthy intelligence of the strength of the Union army.
Garfield decided not to communicate the contents of this letter, lest his officers should be alarmed at the prospect of attacking a force so much superior. He called a council, however, and put this question:
"Shall we march at once, or wait the coming of Craven?"
All but one were in favor of waiting, but Garfield adopted the judgment of this one.
"Forward it is!" he said. "Give the order."
I will only state the plan of Garfield's attack in a general way. There were three roads that led to Marshall's position—one to the east, one to the west, and one between the two. These three roads were held by strong Confederate pickets.
Now, it was Garfield's policy to keep Marshall deceived as to his strength. For this reason, he sent a small body to drive in the enemy's pickets, as if to attack Paintville. Two hours after, a similar force, with the same orders, were sent on the road to the westward, and two hours later still, a small force was sent on the middle road. The first pickets, retreating in confusion, fled to the camp, with the intelligence that a large body of Union troops were on their way to make an attack. Similar tidings were brought by the two other bodies of pickets, and Marshall, in dismay, was led to believe that he was menaced by superior numbers, and hastily abandoned Paintville, and Garfield, moving his men rapidly over the central route, occupied the town.
Gen. Marshall would have been intensely mortified had he known that this large Union army was little more than one-fourth the size of his own.
But his alarm was soon increased. On the evening of the 8th of January, a spy entered his camp, and reported that Craven, with thirty-three hundred men, was within twelve hours' march at the westward.
The big general (he weighed three hundred pounds) was panic-stricken. Believing Garfield's force to number ten thousand, this reinforcement would carry his strength up to over thirteen thousand. Ruin and defeat, as he fancied, stared him in the face, for how could his five thousand men encounter nearly three times their number? They would, of course, be overwhelmed. There was safety only in flight.