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Updated: May 3, 2025
With Hooker in command, Gettysburg would have been Lee's Waterloo. Sunday, June 21, heavy cannonading in the direction of the passes in the Blue Ridge mountains, proclaimed that the battle was raging. Pleasanton's cavalry had encountered Stuart and Fitzhugh Lee at Middleburg and a fierce engagement resulted.
One of the captains of General Pleasanton's cavalry fell at Sharpsburg, leaving a vacancy which that gallant officer filled, by General Hooker's consent, with his volunteer aid-de-camp. Mary Crawford's cavalry sabre had at last found its true field, though he had worn it through all, instead of the more showy regulation blade, when on staff duty.
It was a precious canteen with the name of John Haskell engraved upon it, and he meant that it should carry him through all dangers into his camp. But he did not mean to use it yet. If he rode into Pleasanton's ranks they would merely take his letter to the general, and that would be the failure of his real mission.
Had it driven in the Southern lines here, Pleasanton's victory would have been assured, but the men in gray, knowing that they must stand, stood with a courage that defied everything. The heavy Northern masses could not drive them away, and then Stuart, whirling about, charged the North in turn with his thousands of horsemen.
Sickles' and Pleasanton's cavalry were already in pursuit. By some curious trick of the breeze or atmospheric conditions not a sound had reached him from the direction of his right wing. A staff officer suddenly turned his glasses to the west. "My God, here they come!"
"Thank you very much, Captain," he said, "but you needn't trouble yourself about me. Perhaps I'd better go on ahead. One rides faster alone." "Don't be afraid that we'll hold you back," said the captain, smiling. "We're one of the hardest riding detachments in General Pleasanton's whole cavalry corps, and we won't delay you a second.
His was merely a small vanguard, and Lee had not yet drawn together his whole army into a compact body. The advance of Lee with a part of his army was harassed moreover by the Northern cavalry, which continued to show the activity and energy that it had displayed so freely at Pleasanton's battle with Stuart.
It looked like "swapping horses when crossing a stream." He was a West Pointer, had the reputation of being a hard fighter, and was known as "The hero of Middleburg." Captain Custer of Pleasanton's staff had also received a star and was to command the Michigan brigade, to be designated as the Second brigade, Third division, cavalry corps, army of the Potomac.
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