What Steinmetz now designed was a home-thrust on the French position; and, accordingly, he ordered several batteries of the 7th Corps and Von Hartmann’s cavalry division to cross the Gravelotte defile and plant themselves on the gentle acclivities to the south of the road. Now the highway runs first through a cutting, is then carried on an embankment, and only near St. Hubert are the gentle southern slopes above the gully accessible to horses and guns. But this narrow track swarmed with troops, into the midst of which came the cavalry and artillery. The infantry gave way and four batteries arrived on the opposite side of the defile, followed by the 9th Uhlans. But so deadly was the storm of shot which burst from the French position—for cannon, mitrailleuse, and chassepot went instantly to work—that two of the batteries were at once driven into the ravine below. The Uhlans actually rode out into the open, took up a position, and remained until it was plain to all that the lives of men and horses were being uselessly sacrificed. The other regiments, “well peppered,” had already gone “threes about” before clearing the defile, and the Uhlans, who were dropping fast, rode back, as well as they could, to Gravelotte or the sheltering woods. A more extravagant movement has rarely been attempted in war, or one less justified by the evident facts of the situation as well as by the deadly results. Yet two batteries actually remained, one, under Captain Hasse, in the open, about seven hundred yards from the French lines of musketry; the other, commanded by Captain Gnügge, covered in front by the low wall of the St. Hubert garden, but lending a flank to the adversary at the top of the road. Captain Hasse and his gunners were stubborn men; they fought their battery for two hours, in fact, until nearly all the men and horses were down. Even then Hasse would not retire, and one of his superiors was obliged to hurry up fresh teams and forcibly drag the guns away. But the battery under the wall held on, and did good service by firing on the French about the Moscow farm.