Charles E. Hazlett
Charles Edward Hazlett (October 15, 1838 – July 2, 1863) was a U.S. Army 1st Lieutenant during the American Civil War. He was killed on Little Round Top during the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg.
Early life
Hazlett was born in Zanesville, Ohio, to Robert Hazlett and Lucy Welles Reed.[1] Hazlett's parents were abolitionists and supporters of the Underground Railroad in central Ohio.[2] After briefly attending Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, he was accepted to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. During his first year at the academy, he was court-martialed and suspended for several months, but later graduated on May 6, 1861, fifteenth in his class.[3]
Civil War
Initially assigned to the
Gettysburg
On the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Hazlett's Battery (3rd Division,
Burial
Hazlett's body was originally buried at the Jacob Weikert house near Little Round Top. Later, his body was reinterred at Woodlawn Cemetery in Zanesville, Ohio.
In memoriam
Four months after Hazlett's death, the U.S. War Department named a redoubt near Portsmouth, Virginia, in his honor.[6]
A 19th century rock carving on
After the Civil War, veterans formed a local chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic in Hazlett's hometown. The chapter was named Hazlett Post 81 in honor of Hazlett and his brother, Capt. John C. Hazlett, an infantry officer who died from a wound suffered at the Battle of Stones River.[7]
In 2011, local Civil War enthusiasts replaced the Hazlett brothers' broken tombstones at Woodlawn Cemetery in Zanesville, Ohio. The city designated May 14, 2011 "Hazlett Day" in honor of the event.
Notes
References
- Pfanz, Harry W. Gettysburg: The Second Day (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press), 1998. ISBN 0-8078-4730-5
- Sergent, Mary E. They Lie Forgotten: The United States Military Academy, 1856-1861, Together With a Class Album for the Class of May, 1861 (Middletown, NY: Prior King Press), 1986.
- The Miscellaneous Documents of the House of Representatives For the First Session of the Fifty-first Congress, 1889-1890 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office), 1891.