Held under strict camp guard, they were sent to Mobile, Alabama while the 10th Tennessee itself advanced to the Battle of Franklin. Organized as Burke's Battalion, 10th Tennessee, they were made part of an "ad hoc" defense force assembled by Lt. Col. William W. Wier and sent by train towards Tupelo, Mississippi, to repel a raid along the Mobile and Ohio Railroad by two brigades of Union cavalry under the command of Brig. Gen. Benjamin Grierson. The Union cavalry force had already captured a substantial number of Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest's dismounted cavalry encamped at Verona on Christmas Day. Burke's Battalion and the 17th Arkansas were sent with a battery of artillery aboard the first train to block the tracks at Egypt Station, a mile west of Aberdeen, Mississippi.