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. [↩]