The Death of A.P. Hill

On the morning of April 2, 1865, 143 years ago yesterday, A.P. Hill was shot and killed by a member of the Union Sixth Corps as he tried to rally his broken lines at Petersburg.

Hill’s death was notable for the fact that it was so well-documented.  Much of A.P. Hill’s life is difficult to piece together.  A dearth of letters (one hopes the proverbial shoe box full of letters in some forgotten closet will yet turn up to shed light on, say, what exactly Hill did at Gettysburg) exists not only for Hill himself, but also for many of his men and officers.  Of the original commanders of the six brigades in A.P. Hill’s Light Division, only Edward Thomas¹ and Charles Field survived the War.  Neither wrote much of consequence about Hill or the Light Division.  Hill’s commanders managed for the most part to keep themselves out of the unseemly post-war feuds that caused many other Southern officers to pick up their pens.  The only seeming positive for understanding Hill is that at least D.S. Freeman had access to Colonel William Palmer, Hill’s long-lived chief of staff. ²

A.P. Hill’s death, however, was extremely well documented and written about.  The best source remains The Southern Historical Society Papers.  Writing for the Baltimore American, James P. Matthews contacted both Cpl. John W. Mauk of the 138th Pennsylvania (the shooter)³ and Hill’s trusted courier George Tucker.

Tucker, after having paid a proper eulogy to his chief noting simply that “we loved him”, recalled the events leading up to the fatal event by beginning by describing Hill’s actions the night prior.

During the entire winter of 1864-’65 General Hill was an invalid, and was absent in Richmond on a sick leave from about March 20th, returning to his command upon being advised of the operations on the right beyond Hatcher’s Run. April 1, accompanied by his staff and couriers, he spent in the saddle from early morning until about 9 P.M., returning at night along the works held by his corps as far as those in front of Fort Gregg, where the General halted a considerable time. He passed only a few words with his staff party or those very, very few in the trenches there. He seemed lost in contemplation of the immediate position, at which the Confederate line had become so terribly stretched that it broke that very night, letting in a deluge of the enemy, who, only partly checked by the wonderful defense of Fort Gregg, next morning flooded the country. We then returned to corps headquarters, which were at Indiana, on an extension of Washington street, Petersburg, and immediately adjoining “The Model Farm,” on the east. General Hill retired to Venable’s cottage, just across the road and within fifty yards of his camp, having had there, during the winter, his wife and two young children.

About midnight the cannonading in front of Petersburg, which had begun at nightfall, became very heavy, increasing as the hours went by. Colonel Palmer, Chief of Staff, woke Major Starke, Acting Adjutant General, and requested him to find out the cause and effect of the prolonged firing. This was between 2 and 3 o’clock on the morning of April 2. Major Starke returned before daylight and reported “that the enemy had part of our line near the Rives’ salient, and that matters looked critical on the lines in front of the city.” This he communicated to General Hill at Venable’s.

Tucker then began to recount the morning Hill was shot:

Before sunrise General Hill came over and asked Colonel Palmer if he had any report from Generals Wilcox and Heth, whose divisions on the right extended from the front of Fort Gregg to and beyond Burgess’s Mill, on Hatcher’s Run. The Colonel told him that he had heard nothing from them, and had nothing further to report beyond Major Starke’s statement.

The General then passed on to his tent, and a few minutes later the Colonel, noticing his colored servant, Charles, leading the General’s saddled horse to his sent, ran to him just as he was mounting and asked permission to accompany him. He told the Colonel no, and desired him to wake up the staff, get everything in readiness and have the headquarters’ wagons hitched up. He added that he was going to General Lee’s, and would take Sergeant Tucker and two couriers, and that as soon as he could have an interview with General Lee, he would return.

General Hill then rode to the couriers’ quarters and found me in the act of grooming my horse. (I did not then have the slightest intimation of what had taken place since our return from the lines the night before.) He directed me to follow him with two couriers immediately to General Lee’s headquarters. He then rode off rapidly. It was our custom, in critical times, to have, during the night, two of the couriers’ horses always saddled. I called to Kirkpatrick and Jenkins, the couriers next in turn, to follow the General as quickly as possible. I saddled up at once and followed them. Kirkpatrick and Jenkins arrived at General Lee’s together, only a few minutes after General Hill, who at once directed Kirkpatrick to ride rapidly back to our quarters (I met him on the road, going at full speed) and tell Colonel Palmer to follow him to the right, and the others of the staff, and couriers, must rally the men on the right. This was the first information received at corps headquarters that our right had given way. General Hill them rode, attended only by Jenkins to the front gate of General Lee’s headquarters (Turnbull House, on the Cox road, nearly one and a half miles westerly from General Hill’s), where I met them. We went directly across the road into the opposite field, and riding due south a short distance the General drew rein, and for a few moments used his field glass, which, in my still profound ignorance of what had happened, struck me as exceedingly queer. We then rode on in the same direction down a declivity toward a small branch running eastward to Old Town Creek, and a quarter of a mile from General Lee’s. We had gone little more than half this distance, when we suddenly came upon two of the enemy’s armed infantrymen. Jenkins and myself, who, up to this time, rode immediately behind the General, were instantly upon them, when, at the demand, “surrender,” they laid down their guns. Turning to the General, I asked what should be done with the prisoners? He said: Jenkins, take them to General Lee.” Jenkins started back with his men, and we rode on.

Though not invited, I was at the General’s side, and my attention having now been aroused and looking carefully ahead and around I saw a lot of people in and about the old log hut winter quarters of General Mahone’s division, situated to the right of Whitworth House and on top of the hill beyond the branch we were approaching. Now as I knew that those quarters had been vacant since about March 15th by the transfer of Mahone to north of the Appomattox, and feeling that it was the enemy’s troops in possession, with nothing looking like a Confederate anywhere, I remarked, pointing to the old camp: “General, what troops are those?” He quickly replied: “The enemy’s.” Proceeding still further and General Hill making no further remark, I became so impressed with the great risk he was running that I made bold to say: “Please excuse me, General, but where are you going?” He answered: “Sergeant, I must go to the right as quicly as possible.” Then, pointing southwest he said: “We will go up this side of the branch to the woods, which will cover us until reaching the field in rear of General Heth’s quarters, I hope to find the road clear at General Heth’s.”

From that time on I kept slightly ahead of the General. I had kept a Colt’s army pistol drawn since the affair of the Federal stragglers. We then made the branch, becoming obscured from the enemy, and crossing the Bowdtoin (not “Boydtown,” as some writers have called it) plank road, soon made the woods, which were kept for about a mile, in which distance we did not see a single person, and emerged into the field opposite General Heth’s, at a point two miles due southwest from General Lee’s headquarters, at the Turnbull House, and at right angles with the Bowdtoin plank road, at the “Harman” House, which was distant half a mile. When going through the woods, the only words between General Hill and myself, except a few relating to the route, were by himself. He called my attention and said: “Sergeant, should anything happen to me you must go back to General Lee and report it.”

We came into the field near its corner, at the foot of a small declivity, rising which I could plainly see that the road was full of troops of some kind. The General, raising his field glass, said: “They are there.” I understood perfectly that he meant the enemy, and asked: “Which way now, General?” He pointed to that side of the woods parallel to the Bowdtoin plank road, about one hundred yards down hill from where our horses stood, saying: “We must keep on to the right.” I spurred ahead, and we had made two thirds of the distance, and coming to a walk, looked intently into the woods, at the immediate edge of which were several large trees. I saw what appeared to be six or eight Federals, two of whom, being some distance in advance of the rest, who halted some forty of fifty yards from the field, ran quickly forward to the cover of one of the large trees, and, one above the other on the same side, leveled their guns.

I looked around to General Hill. He said: “We must take them,” at the same time drawing, for the first time that day, his Colt’s navy pistol. I said: “Stay there, I’ll take them.” By this time we were within twenty yards of the two behind the tree and getting closer every moment. I shouted: “If you fire, you’ll be swept to hell! Our men are here — surrender!” When General Hill was at my side calling “surrender,” now within ten yards of the men covering us with their muskets (the upper one the General, the lower one myself), the lower soldier let the stock of his gun down from his shoulder, but recovered quickly as his comrade spoke to him (I only saw his lips move) and both fired. Throwing out my right hand (he was on that side) toward the General, I caught the bridle of his horse, and, wheeling to the left, turned in the saddle and saw my General on the ground, with his limbs extended, motionless.

Mauk recalled his role in events a bit more succinctly, but very similarly to Tucker:

Just as we entered the swamp we saw two men on horseback coming from the direction of Petersburg, who had the appearance of officers. They advanced until they came to the men on the hill; they then turned and rode toward us. We had just entered the swamp, when they advanced with cocked revolvers in their hands, which were leveled at us. Seeing a large oak tree close to the road, we took it for protection against any movement they would be likely to make. Seemingly by direction of his superior, one of the rebel officers remained behind. The other advanced with his revolver pointed at us, and demanded our surrender, saying, “Surrender, or I will shoot you. A body of troops are advancing on our left (i.e., from the direction of Petersburg), and you will have to surrender, anyway!” The officer still advanced and peremptorily demanded, “Surrender your arms.” I said “I could not see it,” and said to Comrade Wolford, “Let us shoot them.”

We immediately raised our guns and fired, I bringing my man from his saddle.

Mauk stated he did not know the name of the officer who he killed until General Horatio Wright told him it was General A.P. Hill.  Mauk also noted that he ran into men from the 5th Alabama — Hill’s headquarters guard — who brought off the body.  Tucker had followed Hill’s directions, switched to Hill’s faster horse (almost certainly Hill’s gray charger Champ), and rode directly to Lee’s headquarters where he explained what happened to first members of Hill’s staff (including Palmer), then to General Longstreet, and finally to Lee himself.

As Walter Taylor put it, “Thus terminated the career of one of the most brilliant and successful leaders in the Southern Army. From the day he crossed the Chickahominy at Mechanicsville, in June, 1862, and opened the attack on the army under General McClellan, to the day of his death, he was a constant and reliable support to General Lee in the operations of his army.”

(Shameless self-promotion time.  If you would like to learn more about A.P. Hill, you can go to my website about him, And Then A.P. Hill Came Up.  The full-text versions of the accounts and information about Hill’s death is contained in the Last Campaign section of the biography.)

1. Technically, Thomas took command from J.R. Anderson, who commanded the brigade during the Seven Days. [↩]
2. For those interested in Gettysburg, unfortunately Palmer was hors de combat — he was still recovering from a dislocated shoulder sustained in a fall from his horse in the same barrage that mortally wounded Jackson at Chancellorsville.  One should wonder if the loss of his trusted chief of staff had some effect on Hill at Gettysburg.  Imagine Longstreet without Sorrel or Ewell without Sandie Pendelton, for example. [↩]
3. Mauk was from Bedford, Pennsylvania.  It was noted that “never boasted of the act which brought his name into the official report of the commander of the division in which he served, but he had no hesitation in telling the thrilling story when it became the subject of special inquiry.” [↩]

why the interest in A.P. Hill

A question via email that has been asked numerous times.  Why the interest in A.P. Hill? 

One of the first books I read about the Civil War was D.S. Freeman’s classic three volume set Lee’s Lieutenants.  For those not familiar with this masterwork, following his four volume Pulitzer prize winning biography of Robert E. Lee, Freeman set about writing a history of the Army of Northern Virginia’s high command.  The trilogy proceeds in chronological order from the first days of the War all the way to the very end at Appomattox.  Lee’s various generals — from Longstreet to Jackson to Stuart to Gordon — all make appearances and are given roles in the drama.

It is here I first encountered A.P. Hill.  Most of Lee’s generals can be distilled down to a word or a phrase or a nickname.  For example, Longstreet is Lee’s “War Horse” — reliable, dependable, solid.  Jackson can be summed up as the “eccentric genius” — difficult, yet brilliant.  Stuart is the cavalier — the superb horseman, the Knight of the Golden Spurs.

A.P. Hill had a nickname too.  Friends and family referred to him as “Powell” and his nickname during the War was “Little Powell.”  Nevertheless, that nickname only suggests a slightness of stature.  It doesn’t give a clue or key to the man like “Old War Horse” or “Old Blue Light” or “Marble Man” or “Tige.”

Hill came across to me as a sort of shadowy character.  He clearly had a volcanic temper that would erupt when he felt he had been slighted.  His fascinating personal “battle” first with Longstreet, then with Stonewall Jackson reflects that.  On the other hand, Hill was well loved by his men.  A courier remembered that “of all the generals, only A.P. Hill never failed, even during the heat of battle, to have a kindly word and perhaps a little joke for the couriers.”

As a general, Hill could be brilliant.   His career was marked by several successes — the highest among them arriving in the nick of time at Sharpsburg.  Yet to counterbalance those brilliant days, Hill had his share of bad days — the most notable being the disaster at Bristoe Station.

I came to the study of the War in the mid 1990s, one of the many people who had their interest in Civil War history ignited by the movie Gettysburg.  (Gettysburg was, of course,  not one of Hill’s better battles.)  While some people may have found their interest passed quickly, mine didn’t.  The more I read about the Civil War, the more I wanted to know.  I became entranced by the period and wanted to know everything I could.  And it was the people who intrigued me the most.  It was as if the War was a grand tragedy written by a great mind like Shakespeare, with this colorful cast of characters — rouges and villains, heroes and idols.  Yet, it was all real, it had all really happened.  You could even travel to Gettysburg and walk over the same ground that Meade and Lee had ridden over.  You could stand on Cemetery Ridge and even crouch behind the stonewall and imagine what it was like to see Pickett’s and Pettigew’s men emerge from the tree line on July 3.

I had a healthy interest in battlefield tactics, and to this day enjoy poring over maps and trying to figure out which regiment was where, how a brigade ended up where it was, of principles of war.  I like to picture battle lines in my head.  But what really captured my imagination was trying to understand the people.  How did men face fire like that and not run?  What was it really like to be there?

In 1997, I signed on to the internet for the first time and discovered there was much out there already about the Civil War.  By that time, I had developed an interest in A.P. Hill.  For whatever reason, I found that I liked this shadowy character who wore a red shirt into battle, dared to pick fights with Longstreet and Jackson, was unquestionably very brave, yet was also significantly flawed.  While there was quite a bit out on the internet about the War, I found there was precious little about A.P. Hill in the new world.

Back before everyone could have a blog and broadcast their thoughts to the world, we had websites.  Websites were also fairly easy to set up and run (though not as easy as a blog), and like blogs you could pretty much publish anything you wanted about any topic.  That said, most websites weren’t personal thought collections like many blogs or little blurbs about what the author is thinking about at any given time.  Rather, they were topical.  I thought it would be neat to give Hill a big, interesting website.  Maybe he had been forgotten, or mostly forgotten anyway, in the books, but I decided that would not be in the new electronic age.

And so I started reading about Hill and then writing about him.  The more I learned, the more I wanted to know. At first, I was more interested in Hill as a general.  But the more I learned about him, the more I wanted to know him as a person.

I wanted Hill to have a nice looking website.  So I learned first HTML, then XHTML, then CSS so I could have a decent looking website.  I studied web design a little bit.  I scanned in pictures and I kept on reading anything I could find with even just a passing reference to Hill.

My site started out small, then grew into a behemoth.  When my dad bought me a copy of the Official Records on CD-Rom, I painstakingly added the reports of not only Hill, but all his subordinates to my site.  When I received a copy of the Southern Historical Society Papers, I again carefully combed through looking for interesting articles about Hill or the men who served under him.

As an internet subject for someone’s first real history project, Hill turned out to be a good subject.  There is a good amount of information available about him, but not an insurmountable amount.   He also had enough paradoxes about him that even people who might not otherwise be interested in history could find Hill an intriguing and interesting fellow.

By the time I graduated from college in 2002, my website was mainly complete, though I still add to it from time to time when I find something interesting or read something interesting about Hill.

And so in that roundabout way, I return to the question — why A.P. Hill?  I could have picked any character — after all, there was no website about John Sedgwick or John Gordon or even of Winfield Scott Hancock.  I think I picked A.P. Hill because he was an interesting person.  Not because he was the War’s best general.  He was not.  Not because he was the War’s worst general.  He was not.  Not because he was saintly.  Hill was not.  Rather, I picked him because he human.  I liked the balance between good and bad qualities.  Human beings are not all good or all bad.  Well, at least most of us aren’t.  Most of us are a mixture of both flaws and good qualities.  In the words of Nietzsche we are “Human, All Too Human.”

Hill was definitely human.  And, I think that’s why he still interests me even today.

supremely happy in battle

This is Colonel William Ransom Johnson Pegram, one of the remarkable young men produced — and then taken, sadly when the outcome was already decided — by our Civil War. ¹ He was known as “Willy.” ² Looks more like a school boy or the professorial type than a warrior gunner, don’t you think? But he was one of the most fierce fighters in the Army of Northern Virginia. General Harry Heth would even remark that Pegram was “one of the few men who, I believe, was supremely happy when in battle.”

A law student at the beginning of the War, at the tender age of 19 (he would not turn twenty for several months), Pegram joined the Richmond “Purcell Artillery” in April 1861. Because he suffered from severe near-sightedness, he had to wear gold rimmed spectacles — even in the heat of battle.

This bookish appearing fellow was an especial favorite of A.P. Hill. ³ During the Gettysburg Campaign, Pegram had fallen ill with fever. He then had to ride to catch up with his men. “General Hill,” Lee said, “I have good news for you; Major Pegram is up.” Hill responded, “Yes, that is good news.” When a staff officer recited the exchange to Pegram, the officer noted that “Pegram valued those few words from the General of the army and the General of his corps more than another star upon his collar.”

Yet, Pegram would have liked promotion and it was richly deserved. Upon seeing a recommendation that Pegram be promoted to command of a brigade near the end of the War, Hill endorsed it: “No officer of the Army of Northern Virginia has done more to deserve this promotion than Lieutenant Colonel Pegram.”

But because Pegram served in the artillery and because he was a young man, he was not ever promoted above the rank of colonel. Speaking to Heth, Lee asked, “He is too young–how old is Colonel Pegram?”

Heth replied, “I do not know, but I suppose about 25.”

Lee answered: “I think a man of 25 as good as he ever will be; what he acquires after that age is from experience; but I can’t understand, when an officer is doing excellent service where he is, why he should want to change.” And the recommendation for promotion was thus returned, camp gossip had it, with the statement that “the artillery could not lose the services of so valuable an officer.”

And so on April 1, 1865, Pegram found himself still in command of his battalion of artillery at the battle of Five Forks. Freeman would recount the day thusly: to the artillerists, it was a day of disaster not to be recorded solely in terms of four guns lost or of good soldiers captured.

Willy Pegram had once sworn that his guns would not be taken from his while he lived; he finally suffered the loss of a gun at Five Forks, but it was only while lying mortally wounded, shot through the left side. He died the next morning. With great feeling his friend Gordon McCabe remembered his final hours,

At about 10 o’clock we reached Ford’s, and I obtained a bed for him . . . I had given him morphine in small quantities until he was easier, and he soon fell into a doze. The enemy advanced on the place about 12 o’clock, and I was left alone with him. I sent off our sabres, horses, spurs, etc., as I felt sure that we would be captured. I shall never forget that night of waiting. I could only pray. He breathed heavily through the night, and passed into a stupor. I bound his wounds as well as I knew how and moistened his lips with water. Sunday morning he died as gently as possible.

His men liked to say no bullet had been molded that could ever take down their young commander who had survived so many sharp fights and so many hails of lead; sadly, it was not so.

Like Pender, Willy Pegram was a devoted Christian and a pious, brave young individual. Of Pegram it was said, “he fell in the discharge of his duty, and died with the philosophy of a Christian.” Many would agree with John C. Haskell that Pegram was the best artillery officer in the Army of Northern Virginia. He was buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, near his brother, General John Pegram, killed a few weeks before.

The following day, likely not knowing of Pegram’s fate, A.P. Hill was killed. Seven days after that, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia surrendered at Appomattox.

The true scope of the tragedy of the Civil War was that it cost our country young, brilliant men like Willy Pegram, who would have been destined to be the country’s leaders. Pegram sadly illustrates that it was often the best and brightest who were killed. And adding to the senseless of his death was the timing — the outcome had been decided by that point, it had only become a question of when and where the final end would come.

1. Willy’s older brother, John, was a West Point graduate, class of 1854. He was a Confederate general and was killed at the battle of Hatcher’s Run in February, 1865, soon after his marriage to the “most beautiful woman of her generation,” Hettie Cary. The death devastated Willy who had always been close with his brother. [↩]
2. D.S. Freeman refers to Pegram as “Willie,” but his biographer Peter Carmichael points out that Pegram usually was called “Willy” by his family.  Although Freeman was a careful historian, a very good historian, I am deferring to Carmichael as a Pegram expert. [↩]
3. And as Hill was known to the men for his red shirt, so Pegram was known for his specs. Upon sighting Pegram, infantryman were said to remark “there’s going to be a fight, for here comes that damn little man with the ’specs’.” Pegram was cut of the same cloth as Hill, and if Pegram flaw it was he was sometimes too aggressive and eager in a fight. [↩]

my a.p. hill site

Just a few words on what I’m doing with my A.P. Hill site (www.aphillcsa.com).

I finally broke. The site has become such an unwieldy mess on my hard-drive and on my server that I decided I have to move it to some sort of content management system. It is just too hard to otherwise update the beast. I am using WordPress. I am not turning the site into a blog. I’m simply using WordPress to manage a lot of material. I think WordPress can be effectively used to maintain just about any type of site — not just a traditional blog. I’m going to find out.

As far as I can tell — and please, someone step in and correct me if I’m wrong — the only way to do this is to copy and paste the site’s individual pages into WordPress. I have the material as text files, but I don’t think there is any way to get them into WordPress other than copying and pasting each individual file. As I said, if someone knows, please tell me!

Needless to say, this is a time consuming and mind-numbing effort. Copying and pasting files is about as much fun as doing document review as an attorney. I hope, however, the result will be a site that is much easier to update and maintain. Right now the site is a little bit of a mess as I work on it. I’m trying to leave it in tact as I work on the conversion.

Suggestions always welcome.

Mrs. A.P. Hill

A number of women had the opportunity to become Mrs. A.P. Hill, most notably the future Mrs. George McClellan and the future Mrs. G.K. Warren.

But Hill’s heart eventually went to a woman by the name of Kitty Morgan McClung.  If you don’t know much about A.P. Hill, you probably know little about his beloved wife, the woman Powell called “Dolly.”

Not long after he lost the hand of the future Mrs. George McClellan, Hill was back out attending parties in Washington.  Apparently, he was of somewhat delicate health even prior to the Civil War and as such he had been assigned to duty with the Coast Survey in the capital.  At one of these Washington parties, Hill met a young widow named Kitty Morgan McClung.

She was a Kentuckian, the sister of future Confederate cavalry general John Hunt Morgan; Kentucky was a border state and divided sympathies were common, but the Morgan family was thoroughly Confederate in allegiance with another sister marrying yet another Rebel cavalry general named Basil Duke.  In 1855, Kitty married a cousin from St. Louis named Calvin McClung.  He died suddenly soon after, however, and Kitty found herself at a young age a widow.  It was in this capacity that the 23-year old met A.P. Hill.

At this point in his life, Hill was not worn down and haggard from illness; he was a slim, dashing soldier with a red mustache and a charming manner that easily won over the opposite sex.  Hill was smitten by the lovely young widow from Kentucky.

Hill seems to have often poured out his deepest thoughts and feelings to his favorite sister Lucy.  He wrote her that, “I can reach you and you can reach me easily, that in case either of us be married, we can surely attend the other. Look out for mine at any time! You know I am so constituted, that to be in love with some one is as necessary to me as my dinner, and there is now a little siren who has thrown her net around me, and I know not how soon I may cry, ‘Pecavvi!’ and yield up my right to flirt with whom I please.”  Kitty, Powell noted, “is a sensible little beauty, and if the spasm will stay in me long enough, and she will say ‘yes,’ why I don’t believe I could do better.”  To his old friend McClellan, Hill opined that Kitty was “gentle and amiable, yet lovely, and sufficiently good looking for me;” he felt his old friend would “like her, and when you come to know her, say that I have done well.”  He closed the letter with an invite to the wedding, to be held at the Morgan family home in Lexington.

Kitty and Powell married on July 18, 1859.  Kitty wore a silk wedding dress; Hill wore his blue lieutenant’s dress uniform.

To Hill, Kitty was forever “Dolly.”  This was the nickname Kitty was given by a black servant charged with caring for the Morgan children.  He was proud of her musical talents.  She possessed the same sense of charm that Hill did, and the couple made friends easily in Washington society.

Undoubtedly, she must have known of Hill’s “youthful indiscretion,” for she knew of his other affairs.  Powell wrote Lucy to not “tease Dolly about Miss Wilson and my other affair.”  The other affair could only have been the infamous affair with “Miss Nelly” — that affair ended abruptly when Mrs. Marcy let out word that Powell had contracted a venereal disease at West Point.

When Hill resigned his commission to cast his lot with Virginia, Dolly dutifully followed him.  What her thoughts at the time were are uncertain, but she probably enjoyed being the wife of a successful Confederate general.  When their Culpeper home became untenable, Dolly attached herself to the Army.  General Scales noted, “Mrs. Hill is not satisfied with remaining here after all the ladies had been ordered away & all the other had left, but said she had no home & she might as well make Orange her home as any where else.”

Unlike Mrs. R.S. Ewell, Dolly apparently did not interfere with military affairs or with the staff of the Light Division or the Third Corps.

But she followed her husband closely.  She would roll her jewelry and other valuables into her chesnut hair for safekeeping and set out with the Army.  Sometimes she followed too closely and apparently she was a spunky woman with a nose for adventure.  According to legend, one night Dolly learned that cavalry general Philip Sheridan was expected in a hotel not far from Confederate lines. Dolly snuck into enemy territory in hopes of picking up useful military information. But, she quickly became an object of suspicion and had to flee with shots ringing out behind her.

The couple had four children, all girls.  Two of these daughters lived till adulthood; one was born after her father was killed at Petersburg.  Dolly and the Hill children were popular with General Lee.  In a letter, Dolly noted that Lee “comes very frequently to see me. He is the greatest and best man on earth, brought me the last time some delicious apples.”  J. William Jones recalled a story about Lee and Lucy Hill

In calling one day in Petersburg upon the accomplished lady of the gallant and lamented General A. P. Hill, his bright little girl met him at the door and exclaimed, with that familiarity which the kind-hearted old hero had taught her: ” O General Lee, here is ‘ Bobby Lee ‘ (holding up a puppy): ” do kiss him.” The general pretended to do so, and the little creature was delighted.

Lucy Lee Hill, one of his two daughters who survived to adulthood, had been christened with Lee as the godfather during the winter of 1863.

Dolly and Powell spent the night of April 1, 1865 together.  On the morning of April 2, Hill parted from his wife and rode out to attempt and rally his lines that were broken beyond possibility of repair.  Soon thereafter, he was shot through the heart and instantly killed.

Dolly was seven months pregnant.  Lee entrusted Hill’s trusted chief of staff, Colonel William Palmer, to tell Dolly the terrible news.  She was engaged in small household tasks and singing.  When she saw Palmer, she threw up her hands in anguish and cried, “The General is dead! You would not be here if he had not been killed!” Palmer tried to temper his news that he didn’t know if Hill was indeed dead or not only that he had been shot, but a few minutes later soldiers came back carrying his lifeless body. Members of his 5th Alabama Regiment had gone out and recovered Hill’s body. When his gauntlets were removed, Dolly noted how conspicuous his wedding ring looked on his mangled hand.  For two days she rode next to his body as first an attempt was made to bury him in Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery, then as the body was transfered to Chesterfield for burial in a family cemetery.

It was probably this final experience that embittered Dolly towards the Confederacy and “The Lost Cause.” ¹  She did not participate in post-war activities, although she did give permission for Hill’s body to be buried underneath the statue it now reposes under in Richmond.  She never again went by the name Dolly after Hill’s death.  Not content to wear black for the rest of her life (like Mrs. Jeb Stuart, for example), she remarried in 1870, this time to a doctor, but again outlived her husband.

Despite her dislike for the “Lost Cause,” Mrs. A.P. Hill was among the longest lived of the Confederate generals widows.  She died on March 20, 1920 in Lexington, Kentucky.  She is buried there as “K. Forsyth” — under the surname of her final husband.

1. Dolly was also no doubt broken by the death of her brother John Hunt Morgan as well. [↩]

and then Hill came up

Today is the 145th anniversary of the battle of Sharpsburg — known as the bloodiest day in American history and probably the finest moment of A.P. Hill’s 23 year military career.

Hill began the Maryland Campaign rather inauspiciously. On September 3, he was arrested by Jackson. In his report of the Maryland Campaign, Hill noted “The march was without incident of importance until arriving at the ford opposite the Warrenton Springs.”

It markedly was not “without incident,” and at the time of his report Hill and Jackson were still bickering about that march. ¹ What seems to have happened was this: Hill disregarded Jackson’s customary rest stops and so Jackson halted Hill’s lead brigade.

Hill stomped over to Jackson. He presented Jackson with his sword, and sneered at him. “If you take command of my troops in my presence, take my sword also.”

“Put up your sword and consider yourself in arrest,” Jackson retorted.

And so Hill went into Maryland this way: “march[ing] on foot with the rear guard all the day through Maryland, an old white hat slouched over his eyes, his coat off and wearing an old flannel shirt, looking mad as a bull.” During this time, Maxcy Gregg also incurred the wrath of Jackson, as did courtly Dixon Barnes, one of his regimental commanders. ²

Henry Kyd Douglas was an aide on Jackson’s staff who wrote a book called I Rode With Stonewall Jackson after the War. He states that he was summoned by Hill who told him: “It is evident a battle is at hand. I do not wish anyone else to command my division in an engagement.” Douglas then, supposedly, interceded on Hill’s behalf with Jackson. However, it happened, Hill was restored to command of his famous Light Division before Harper’s Ferry. ³ A soldier recalled that “donning his coat and sword he mounted his horse and dashed to the front of his troops, and looking like a young eagle in search of his prey, took command of his division to the delight of all his men.”

Hill was given responsibility for handling the surrender at Harper’s Ferry. Rather peevishly, Hill noted that “I granted General White the most liberal terms, and regret to report that this magnanimity was not appreciated by the enemy, as the wagons which were loaned to carry off the private baggage of the officers were not returned for nearly two months, and not until repeated calls had been made for them.” McClellan, who repeatedly refused to answer Hill’s inquiries (preferring to deal through Lee himself, apparently), finally returned the twenty-seven wagons and teams with an endorsement to Lee: “furnished by General A. P. Hill at Harper’s Ferry in September last for the transportation of private baggage belonging to certain paroled officers of the U.S. Army passing to within our lines. In so doing I desire to express my appreciation of the courtesy thus extended to these officers and to request that you will convey the same to General Hill with my thanks for his action in the matter.”

Left behind by Jackson to see to the paroling of the enemy and final disposition of the Ferry, Hill was not at Sharpsburg in line of battle on the morning of September 17, 1862. Instead, he was 17 miles or so away. Hill received an order at 6:30 AM from Lee to come to Sharpsburg. He was moving by 7:30. (Thomas’s Georgia Brigade stayed behind at the Ferry “to complete the removal of the captured property.”)

The day was hot and the pace of the march was killing. Hill, it is said, drove the Light Division at the point of his sword; almost certainly he was seen riding up and down his lines mounted on either of his two splendid mounts — the gray Champ or his black charger Prince — wearing a red “hunting shirt,” exhorting his men onwards.

This march — which would later play such a big part in the history of the Army of Northern Virginia — was barely mentioned by Hill in his report. A few anecdotes survive. A frightened lieutenant found behind a tree had his sword broken over him. Hill also apparently also stopped at the Potomac crossing to smack a mouthy teamster with his sword when the man told Hill to mind his own business after Hill told him to stop mistreating the mules.

When Hill arrived on the battlefield at 2:30, Army of Northern Virginia tradition states that Lee embraced Hill — the only such a show of emotion by the commanding general during the War.

Henry Kyd Douglas - the same who claimed to have interceded on Hill’s behalf — was talented with the pen. He wrote later that,

But then, just then, A.P. Hill, picturesque in his red battleshirt, with 3 of his brigades, 2500 men, who had marched 17 miles from Harpers Ferry and had waded the Potomac, appeared upon the scene. Tired and footsore, the men forgot their woes in that supreme moment, and with no breathing time braced themselves to meet the coming shock. They met it and stayed it. The blue line staggered and hesitated, and hesitating, was lost. At the critical moment A.P. Hill was always at his strongest.

Hill put it more simply. “My troops were not in a moment too soon,” he wrote proudly in his report. William Allan noted later, “his arrival was not less opportune to Lee than was that of Blucher to Wellington at Waterloo, nor was his action when on the field in any way inferior to that of the Prussian field-marshal.” ⁴

Going on with his account of the battle, Hill wrote:

The enemy had already advanced in three lines, had broken through Jones’ division, captured McIntosh’s battery, and were in the full the of success. With a yell of defiance, Archer charged them, retook McIntosh’s guns, and drove them back pell mell. Branch and Gregg, with their old veterans, sternly held their ground, and, pouring in destructive volleys, the of the enemy surged back, and, breaking in confusion, passed out of sight.

The three brigades of my division actively engaged did not number over 2,000 men, and these, with the help of my splendid batteries, drove back Burnside’s corps of 15,000 men.

Hill’s attack was launched into the corps of his old friend Ambrose Burnside. After the battle, Hill was supposedly asked if he knew the Burnside who his Division had slammed into with such force. “Ought to. He owes me $8,000.00.” Whether Burnside owed his friend Hill a loan or not, they definitely knew each other from West Point where they were classmates and partners in various mischief in the form of “senior pranks.” ⁵

After the battle, Hill issued an official order congratulating the Division:

You saved the day at Sharpsburg and at Shepherdstown. You were selected to face a storm of round shot, shell, and grape such as I have never before seen. I am proud to say to you that your services are appreciated by our general, and that you have a reputation in this army which it should be the object of every officer and private to sustain.

Hill’s opportune arrival probably saved Lee’s Army and prolonged the War another two years plus. It certainly also had another big impact on the War: it is probably the act that earned Hill a corps command following the death of Jackson.

1. This was the ugliest internal squabble in the history of the Army of Northern Virginia. Hill believed Jackson was keeping a “blacklist” against him. Jackson — after Hill badgered him enough — eventually preferred charges — or rather a single charge, Neglect of Duty, of which there were 8 specifications. The feud culminated in Hill’s calling Jackson “a slumbering volcano” in a letter to Lee. After this, Lee supposedly called both of his feuding lieutenants to his headquarters and there was a private meeting, but what was said is speculative. [↩]
2. Barnes was arrested for allowing his men to pick apples. Hill restored him to command before the battle after Barnes volunteered to go into the fight as a private: “General Gregg, I order you to give Colonel Barnes his sword and put him in command of his Regiment.” Barnes was mortally wounded at the head of his regiment and died two days later. [↩]
3. The veracity of some of the stories told in Douglas’ memoirs are questionable; he seems to have occasionally embellished or even downright created fabrications. Therefore, this story is somewhat suspect. What more likely happened was Hill simply sent a note to Jackson asking to be restored to command for the Campaign and Jackson, knowing Hill’s quality as a fighter, decided to put the bickering aside when battle was imminent. [↩]
4. Allan was an Ordnance Officer under Jackson. [↩]
5. Burnside was soon promoted to command of the Army of the Potomac. It was not the best move of the War. [↩]

A.P. Hill Monument Project

A friend tipped me off to this one. It made my day yesterday.

As most of my Civil War readers are probably aware, A.P. Hill was buried for the third and final time underneath a monument and statue in Richmond. I am happy to report that the community where the monument is located is currently restoring the monument by cleaning and repairing the bronze statue of Hill. Here are some pictures. The community is known as Bellevue. It is a “pleasant little neighborhood just ten short minutes from downtown Richmond, Virginia.”

Restoration of the monument will cost $10,000.00. If you would like to make a contribution to the cause, checks can be made payable to the Richmond Recreation and Parks Foundation and mailed to:

Historic Preservation Guild
P.O. Box 9756
Richmond, Virginia 23228

It is very nice to see the General being remembered and to see the local community appreciating their history. To my knowledge, this is the only statue to A.P. Hill. It will be excellent to see it restored to its former glory. If you’d like to read about the dedication of the statue from the 19th century, here are some links from my A.P. Hill website:

• Richmond Dispatch, May 31, 1892. Unveiling Of The Statue Of General Ambrose Powell Hill AT RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, MAY 30, 1892.
• From the Petersburg Index Appeal, November 30, 1892.
• General Walker’s Address.

here’s your chance

… Here’s your chance to see just what a cancer fighting Civil War historian who can also run 50 miles + per week looks like.

(Frequent readers know I do post pictures of myself from time to time. Mainly out of bordeom. And to prove I am still alive and still have a little hair.¹ But this picture is special because I actually like this one. If for no other reason, I like this picture because I like where it was taken! I liked it enough to use it for my “About” page.)

Anyway, that is me at A.P. Hill’s headquarters. Err, rather, the marker for A.P. Hill’s headquarters.² The actual Third Corps headquarters on July 2d and 3d was most likely at the Emanuel Pitzer farm which is behind me.³ My dad is the photographer.

1. What is there is slowly disappearing. I fear I will soon look like Confederate General Richard S. Ewell. And believe me. No female wants to look like Richard Ewell. [↩]
2. The marker is on Seminary Ridge, just to the south of the North Carolina monument. [↩]
3. My friend and Getttysburg Licensed Battlefield Guide Andy Ward says Hill may have had his HQ at the Pitzer farm. The monument says Hill’s hq was located 540 yards westerly. That puts them at or about the E. Pitzer Farm. The Pitzer farm buildings are the big white structures you can see looking west from Confederate Avenue near the North Carolina Monument. The farm is known today as Brown Ranch. Some of the buildings anyway date to the War. Tracing Hill at Gettysburg is a very tough task because so little source material seems to survive. We do have an account that says he watched the battle from the top of a tree, so apparently he was feeling better from his July 1 sickness reported by Fremantle among others. [↩]

buggy buggy buggy

“My God, will these mosquitoes never satiate their vampieran appetite for blood? Buggy, buggy, buggy. There is no peace for the wicked, saith the good book. Mosquitoes were especially sent to earth as a torment to the wicked. Wonder if Noah had any in the ark with him!” Lieutenant A.P. Hill, October 16, 1848

I am currently uploading a new version of my A.P. Hill website. I have been diligently working on it for some time on the C: drive of my computer, but I have pretty much gone as far as I could go without having it “live” on the web. For some time, I am sure it will be “buggy, buggy, buggy” as I work out the broken pages (i.e. 404-errors) and weed out the inevitable XHTML and CSS errors with a validator. Please pardon the dust while I work on it. I plan to put some serious time into the site over the next week or so, and in the next two days in particular.

An update (6/27/07): Currently the search feature isn’t working (I am working on troubleshooting it). Also, I have found at least a few missing pages or pages where I miscoded an url. I’m working on these issues and hope to have them resolved in the next couple days.

Update 6/27/07 (2): I have fixed the search engine and am now working on weeding out broken links .

the Gregg-McGowan Brigade & history musings

A visitor asked what my favorite brigade in the Light Division was. I hate to play favorites, because I am sure Hill would have been careful not to show favoritism (he was a very good officer that way), but my favorite brigade is the South Carolina brigade of Maxcy Gregg and Samuel McGowan.

Just the visual of Maxcy Gregg, wielding his Revolutionary War scimitar at Second Manassas, lopping the “heads” off of the daisies, urging his men with “let us die here, my men, let us die here!” — that’s what makes history exciting, at least for me. The images. Maybe that’s why I liked the movie Gettysburg so much.

For historiography class — I was a history major in college — I had to write a paper on an historian. I was hoping for Douglas Southall Freeman.⁰ Yes, I was even an A.P. Hill fan back then and I was enthralled by R.E. Lee and then by the three volumes that made up Lee’s Lieutenants. But I ended up assigned with Allan Nevins who I had never read.

So I broke out “Ordeal of the Union” — that was Nevins’ main multi-volume treatise on the War. While of course no Lee’s Lieutenants (nothing measured up at that time for me with Freeman), I appreciated Nevins style. He wrote well. Not all historians can write well. And reading Nevins — who thought a lot about historiography — was the first time I had ever thought about the study of history.¹

My favorite Nevins quote came out of an address to the American Historical Association entitled “Not Capulets, Not Montagus”² in which he described history as like a painting. Some imagination, Nevins pointed out in some of his other works, was necessary to mix with the paint.

Nevins was concerned very much with the general public remaining interested in the historical field. He railed against boring academics. Nevins thought there was a large segment of the population out there who were interested in history, but needed it presented in a digestible form. He’s probably right, though I don’t think he was for the “dumbing down” of history. Nevins thought that a good knowledge of history was necessary to a democratic republic and though he thought history should be presented in an accessible way, I think it was a big part of his historical philosophy that historians shouldn’t automatically assume the public was dumb.

I’m not an academic historian — far from it. I think I am probably more of your Nevins prototypical, educated democratic republican … Hey, I admit I like military history and biography and my eyes always sort of glazed over when too much “academic” stuff was presented. And Then A.P. Hill Came Up has plenty of primary source material that stands on its own, but the point never was to produce an academic work. The point was to get people interested in history. Especially kids. Because history is a fascinating topic.

If And Then A.P. Hill Came Up has interested one person in history, then all the hours hacking away at it were worthwhile.

Anyway, I always liked the painting quote …. History can never be a photograph of the past — well, it can be, obviously as we do have what are snapshots of the past (be they film or recorded) — but once interpretation mixes in, history becomes more art than science. No historian is without biases. Its just not possible. Or at least that’s how I have always seen it. My favorite authors have always been the ones who could paint. Its nice to have the primary sources, of course, but without interpretation, without the images, history would be (as its critics point out) boring.

Hopefully And then A.P. Hill Came Up isn’t boring and hopefully it has the right mix of “real” history sources and narrative history to make it accessible and appealing to the general public, yet also useful to a large segment of the public, maybe even to a more academic audience. But I don’t really know. The site is unique because it has stuff written from Jenny at the tender age of 17 (still in high school, in fact) all the way to 27 — and you better believe my views on things (generals, battles, history) have changed. I think that’s inevitable with experience and with age.

The site was built partly for me — I admit it. It exists partly to fulfill a selfish interest in the Civil War period that I had no outlet for — I had the itch to write and create and I still do. But its never been about making money and I’ve always kept the site as a free source … sort of an internet A.P. Hill library. Its my little contribution to the world. (I’m proud of it, but I don’t pretend its a real work of art, like a book.)

I should also say that maintaining a Civil War website has been nothing if not interesting. The nature of the medium, the ability to change things totally at will, to evolve, is something authors of books don’t get as much opportunity for. I mean, an author can always publish a new edition, but nowhere near as easily as I can change my website. If I want to add stuff, I add it. Whenever I want.

I also love being able to trade information. Through my site, I’ve met all sorts of cool and interesting people. Everyone from Civil War historians and authors to just regular people who enjoy history (a few have even contributed to the A.P. Hill site). There is no better way to be found today than to be out on the world wide web.

I also have to admit to loving the technical aspects and challenges of having a website. I actually enjoy writing CSS code and changing the design from time to time — and I am a self-taught website designer (even more so than a historian; at least there I was a history major in college as an undergrad). Being a Civil War webmaster has involved not only learning about history but it has also entailed a lot of work learning to code XHTML and CSS (I am proud to say I hand-coded my A.P. Hill website). A Civil War webmaster is part historian, part techie. He or she has to be. Its rather cool and very 21st century.³

If you managed to wade through this widely rambling post, I am deeply impressed.

—
0. I need to spend more time surfing the Civil War blogsphere. Somehow I missed Richard Williams’ excellent Old Virginia Blog. There is an EXCELLENT piece right up front currently on Douglas Southall Freeman. Having browsed through Mr. Williams’ blog, I think its right up my alley — and probably the alley of you other A.P. Hill “fans” out there (c’mon I KNOW theres more than just me)

1. Speaking of blogging. As an aside: If you’re interested in historiography of the War Between the States, then you definitely need to start reading Dimitri’s blog, if its already not on your regular list. I don’t always agree with him (does anyone always agree with anyone, ever?), but Dimitri WILL make you think and I think that’s one of the highest compliments you can pay a blogger. And that’s why his blog has been in my blogroll for as long as I can remember. He is also delightfully opinionated — sometimes acerbically so.

2. You can read “Not Capulets, Not Montagus” online at the American Historical Association website.

3. For an excellent treatment of what its like on an ongoing basis to have a Civil War website project, I highly recommend Behind Antietam on the Web written by Brian Downey.