Howard, upon being attacked, had sent hurriedly for a cavalry regiment.
Pleasonton, having received orders to send him one, instructed Major
Huey, commanding the Eighth Pennsylvania Cavalry, to march to Dowdall's
and report to Howard. Huey set out by the wood road which leads through
Hazel Grove into the plank road. From the testimony of the persons
chiefly concerned it would appear that, at the time this order was
given by Pleasonton to Huey, there was at Hazel Grove, where the cavalry
regiments were drawn up, no sign whatever of the disaster to Howard.
There were no fugitives nor any confusion. Nor does the evidence show
that Pleasonton ordered any charge on the enemy: it rather shows that
Huey was not directed to go at urgent speed. And he must have been very
deliberate in his movement, for by the time the cavalry had reached the
vicinity of the plank road, Jackson had demolished the Eleventh Corps,
and had advanced so far that the head of this cavalry column, marching
by twos, suddenly came upon the Confederate lines. The officers in the
lead at once gave the order to charge, and right gallantly did
these intrepid horsemen ride down into the seething mass of exultant
Confederate infantry. The shock was nobly given and home, but was, of
course, in the woods and against such odds, of no great effect. Thirty
men and three officers, including Major Keenan, were killed. Only one
Confederate report--Iverson's--mentions this charge. Its effect was
local only.
Three batteries of Whipple's division had remained in the Hazel Grove
clearing while the infantry had advanced towards the Furnace. When
the rout of the Eleventh Corps became clear, these eighteen guns were
ordered in battery, facing about north-west, by their commander, Capt.
Huntington, and kept up a heavy fire upon the woods through which
Jackson was pushing his way. Pleasonton, for his part, trained Martin's
horse-battery in the same direction. Other guns were later added to
these, and all expended a good deal of ammunition on the enemy's lines.
But there was no fighting at Hazel Grove rising to the distinction of
a battle. The importance given to it by Sickles and Pleasonton is not
borne out by the facts. There was no Federal loss, to speak of; nor do
the Confederate reports make any comment upon this phase of the battle.
They probably supposed these guns to be an extension of the line of
batteries at Fairview. As such they were, without question, of no
inconsiderable use.
Meanwhile Birney, sending word to Barlow that they run danger of
being cut off, and detailing the Twentieth Indiana and Sixty-third
Pennsylvania Volunteers as rearguard, rejoins Sickles and Pleasonton in
the clearing, and both move up to sustain his flank.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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