At about noon, Hooker ordered Sickles to advance cautiously toward the road followed by the enemy, and harass the movement as much as possible. Sickles stretched his orders substantially. He sent Birney’s division, preceded by two regiments of sharpshooters, south from Hazel Grove to attack the column and gain possession of the road. Near Catherine Furnace, at the bend where the road turns south, the Federals overwhelmed a Rebel rear-guard regiment (the 23rd Georgia Infantry) and took about 300 prisoners. The road gained, Birney ordered into action an artillery battery that, he later reported, poured a well-directed fire on the retreating column of the enemy. Sickles was convinced that Lee was leaving the field in full retreat. He echoed Birney’s words in his own report, declaring that the battery was advanced and poured a destructive fire on the retreating column of the enemy. The movement was successfully completed.

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By this time, Lt. Gen. Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson’s Confederate corps was well on its way around Hooker’s flank. When Lee learned of the attack on Jackson’s rear guard, he ordered two brigades of Maj. Gen. Richard H. Anderson’s division to strike Birney from the east. With Hooker’s blessing, Sickles reinforced Birney with Whipple’s reserve division, a reserve brigade of almost 3,000 men from the XI Corps under Brig. Gen. Francis Barlow, and a XII Corps division under Brig. Gen. Alpheus Williams. Sickles’ total force numbered about 20,000 men. His forward movement left a wide, undefended gap in the established Union line, inadvertently created a long salient that exposed his force to attack from two sides, and completely isolated the XI Corps from the rest of the Union army.

Shortly after 6 p.m., Jackson’s flank attack struck the unprepared XI Corps like a thunderbolt. At about 7:15 p.m., when the rush of fugitives from that routed corps erased all Sickles’ doubts as to Lee’s intention, the III Corps commander broke off his misbegotten foray to the south and returned to Hazel Grove. There, with Birney’s and Whipple’s divisions, he found himself in a most precarious position–directly between the two wings of the Confederate army.

At about 11 p.m., Sickles launched a night attack in an effort to retake a portion of the original Union line along the turnpike. He succeeded in securing his right to the main Union position near the Chancellor house, but he was virtually surrounded and in danger of being overrun when the fighting resumed in the morning. Sickles’ predicament greatly alarmed Hooker, who was prepared to withdraw his whole front and leave Sickles to his fate. Undaunted, Sickles asked Hooker for reinforcements, convinced that he had the key position on the battlefield. He may have been right, but Hooker had other ideas and ordered him to abandon Hazel Grove.

Sickles later contended that had his salient been supported, the stampede of the XI Corps might have been avoided. He believed he had seized the initiative, improvised his own strategy on the spot, and was only cheated of victory by lack of support from an emotionally drained commander. He felt that he had saved the day and checked Jackson’s advance. The evidence, however, does not support such contentions.

In fact, Sickles had accomplished nothing to stop Jackson’s flank attack, and found himself instead isolated and in no position to slow or prevent the debacle on the army’s right flank. When he returned to Hazel Grove, Sickles drove off a scouting party of about 200 men of the 4th Georgia Infantry. This can hardly be described as stopping Jackson’s attack, which petered out long before it ever reached Sickles’ position because of confusion in the underbrush and the need to reorganize. As for his brilliant night attack, witnesses reported that it was a mixed-up mess, one of the most comical episodes in the history of the Army of the Potomac. Very little of value was accomplished. Its main effect was to increase the number of casualties and deprive both armies of sleep.

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