Ralph Jones of the Honey Creek battlefield, thinks the man may have been misstaken. But it never hurts to look for it. It makes sense to me for a delaying action. The wagons are moving much slower than Cavalry can travel. Robert Demoss estimated the Wagon caravan of the Unionist to travel 3 to 4 mile and hour, that is the speed of a horse and rider walking not trying to go anywhere. ACavalry troop can cover 25 miles a day and not stress their horses, it is not impossible to travel fifty for a horse and rider trying to cover some ground. So to keep the pursuing Cavalry back, you need to create roadblocks. Bullets work real well as roadblocks. A series of hit and run attacks on the Cavalry will slow them quite well