Chapter XXII: Part 22

Subsequently sixty men of Johnson's North Carolina Brigade, under command of Captain Plato Durham, recaptured Fort Mahone, which for an hour had been so covered by our fire as to forbid its occupants showing themselves. In taking this fort a large number of prisoners were captured; so many, in fact, that when I first saw them skulking behind the earthworks for protection against the fire of their own men, I feared it was a ruse on the part of the enemy to surprise us. They had secreted themselves for safety in this work, and we, in our charge, had taken the only outlet.

After this no general attack was made, though we continued slowly but gradually to drive them from traverse to traverse.

About nightfall the enemy occupied some two hundred yards of our breastworks. Through no inefficiency or negligence on the part of the officers and men were the works carried, but owing to the weakness of the line, its extreme length, and the want of sufficient force to defend it, for they acted most heroically on this trying occasion. Only one unwounded man (an officer) did I see seeking the rear, and he one whom I had the previous day ordered under arrest for trafficking with the enemy (exchanging tobacco for coffee). Him I hailed and inquired where he was going, when he recalled his arrest of the previous day, from which I immediately released him, and sent him back to his command.

I had a verbal conference with General Lee and afterwards officially reported my inability to hold this point against any vigorous attack. In consequence of this report, Lieutenant-Colonel Peyton, the Army-Inspector, was sent to examine this line, and he coincided with my views and so reported to General Lee. On an average throughout, the space from man to man was at least eight feet in the line of trenches. I doubted not that with a reserve of five hundred men I could have driven the enemy from any point which they might capture, and repeatedly urged that such an arrangement be made, knowing well that the enemy, by concentrating a large force on any given point, could press their way through the line, and my only salvation was in having the means at hand to drive them back before large numbers could enter. Our left was the post of greatest danger. There should the reserve have been placed; but General Lee informed me that every available man was on duty, and I must do the best I could.

On Sunday night of the 2nd we had orders to abandon the works, and without the knowledge of the Federals, we withdrew to the north side of the Appomattox river, following the Hickory Road to Goode's Bridge, where we recrossed the Appomattox, proceeding towards Amelia Court House, which we reached on the morning of the 5th. Wednesday we remained stationary in line of battle, confronting the enemy until about dark, when we followed the army, taking up the rear, being very much impeded on the march by the wagon train and its most miserable management, which, as I apprehended, would cause us some disaster. The enemy showed themselves on Thursday, about 8 o'clock A. M., in our rear and on our left flank, when near Amelia Springs, and in a short time began to press us vigorously.

I then formed Cox's and Cowand's Brigades in line of battle, with a heavy skirmish line in front to impede their progress, and to cover our rear, sending Battle's, Cook's and Archer's Brigades forward for one-half mile to form there, across the road, in line of battle in order to allow Cowand and Cox to retreat safely when the enemy had deployed and prepared to attack; our right flank being protected by a North Carolina brigade of cavalry under General Roberts. In this manner alternating the brigades throughout the day, we continued to oppose the enemy and retreat, endeavoring to protect the lagging wagon train, which was successfully done up to about 4 P. M., when we approached Sailor's Creek, and upon the ridge running parallel with that stream we made the final stand of the day, the wagons becoming blocked up at the bridge crossing the stream. At this point General Lee ordered me if possible to hold this line until he could have artillery put in position on the opposite hills over the creek parallel with those I occupied.

The enemy pushed on rapidly, attacking us with very great pertinacity. We here repeatedly repulsed their assaults, but by turning both of our flanks they succeeded in not only dislodging but driving us across the creek in confusion. About now the artillery from the heights occupied by General Lee opened upon the enemy, and the sun being down they did not cross the creek. After we broke, personally I was so pressed, the space between the two wings of the enemy being not over two hundred yards, that I sought safety in retreat. I galloped to the creek (the bridge being in their possession) where the banks were very precipitous, and for protection from their murderous fire, concluded to jump my horse in, riding him through the water, and effect my escape by abandoning him on the other side, the bullets of the enemy whistled around me like hail all the while. By great good fortune, the opposite banks proving not so precipitous, and my horse, seeming to appreciate the situation, clambered up the height and started off in a run, thus securing my safety. This same animal, Warren, I still own and treasure for his past services. That night we took the road for Farmville, crossing the Appomattox at High Bridge, posting guards on the south side, thus collecting all stragglers and returning them to their commands.

The next morning (Friday) we continued our march down the railroad and formed line of battle on the Lynchburg road, still endeavoring to preserve that "_impedimenta_" of Cæsar's--the wagon-train--marching by the left flank through the woods parallel to the road traveled by the wagon train, and about one hundred or so yards distant from the road. Upon reaching the road and point that turns towards Lynchburg from the Cumberland road, three of my brigades, Cook's, Cox's, and Cowand's, had crossed the Cumberland road and were in line of battle, and at right angles with Battle's and Archer's Brigades, who were still parallel with the Cumberland road. Heavy firing was going on at this point, when General Mahone came rushing up and reported that the enemy had charged; turning his flank, and driving his men from their guns and the works which he had erected early in the day for the protection of these cross roads. I then ordered my three brigades, Cook's, Cox's, and Cowand's [to move], at a double-quick on the line with Battle and Archer, and charging the enemy, we drove them well off from Mahone's works, recapturing the artillery taken by them and capturing a large number of prisoners. I held this position until sent for by General Lee, who complimented the troops of the division upon the charge made and the service rendered, ordering me to leave a skirmish line in my front, and stating that Field's Division would occupy my position; I was to hurry with all possible dispatch to the road which intersected the Lynchburg road, as the enemy's cavalry were reported to be approaching by that road.

We reached this road, halting and keeping the enemy in check until the wagons had passed, and then continued the march parallel with the road traveled by the wagon train, continuing thus to march until night, when we took the road following to protect the trains.

On Saturday, the 8th, no enemy appeared, and we marched undisturbed all day. Up to this time, since the evacuation of Petersburg, we had marched day and night, continually followed and harassed by the enemy. The men were very much jaded and suffering for necessary sustenance, our halts not having been sufficiently long to prepare their food, besides all our cooking utensils not captured or abandoned were where we could not reach them. This day Bushrod Johnson's Division was assigned to and placed under my command, by order of General Lee. Upon passing a clear stream of water and learning that the other division of the corps had gone into camp some two miles ahead, I concluded to halt and give my broken-down men an opportunity to close up and rejoin us, and sent a message to General Gordon, commanding the corps, making known my whereabouts, informing him I would be at any point he might designate at any hour desired.

By dark my men were all quiet and asleep. About 9 o'clock I heard the roar of artillery in our front, and in consequence of information received, I had my command aroused in time and passed through the town of Appomattox Court House before daylight, where, upon the opposite side of the town, I found the enemy in my front. Throwing out my skirmishers and forming line of battle, I reconnoitred and satisfied myself as to their position, and awaited the arrival of General Gordon for instructions, who, awhile before day, accompanied by General Fitz Lee, came to my position, when we held a council of war. General Gordon was of the opinion that the troops in our front were cavalry, and that General Fitz Lee should attack. Fitz Lee thought they were infantry and that General Gordon should attack. They discussed the matter so long that I became impatient, and said it was somebody's duty to attack, and that immediately, and I felt satisfied that they could be driven from the cross-roads occupied by them, which was the route it was desirable that our wagon train should pursue, and that I would undertake it; whereupon Gordon said, "Well, drive them off." I replied, "I cannot do it with my division alone, but require assistance." He then said, "You can take the two other divisions of the corps." By this time it was becoming sufficiently light to make the surrounding localities visible. I then rode down and invited General Walker, who commanded a division on my left, composed principally of Virginians, to ride with me, showing him the position of the enemy and explaining to him my views and plan of attack. He agreed with me as to its advisability. I did this because I felt that I had assumed a very great responsibility when I took upon myself the charge of making the attack. I then made dispositions to dislodge the Federals from their position, placing Bushrod Johnson's Division upon my right, with instructions to attack and take the enemy in the flank, while my division skirmishers charged in front, where temporary earthworks had been thrown up by the enemy, their cavalry holding the crossings of the road with a battery. I soon perceived a disposition on their part to attack this division in flank. I rode back and threw our right so as to take advantage of some ditches and fences to obstruct the cavalry if they should attempt to make a charge. In the meantime the cavalry of Fitz Lee were proceeding by a circuitous route to get in rear of them at these cross-roads. The enemy observing me placing these troops in position fired upon me with four pieces of artillery. I remember well the appearance of the shell, and how directly they came towards me, exploding and completely enveloping me in smoke. I then gave the signal to advance, at the same time Fitz Lee charged those posted at the cross-roads, when my skirmishers attacked the breastworks, which were taken without much loss on my part, also capturing several pieces of artillery and a large number of prisoners, I at the same time moving the division up to the support of the skirmishers in echelon by brigades, driving the enemy in confusion for three-quarters of a mile beyond the range of hills covered with oak undergrowth. I then learned from the prisoners that my right flank was threatened. Halting my troops I placed the skirmishers, commanded by Colonel J. R. Winston, Forty-fifth North Carolina troops, in front, about one hundred yards distant, to give notice of indication of attack. I placed Cox's Brigade, which occupied the right of the division at right angles to the other troops, to watch that flank. The other divisions of the corps (Walker's and Evans') were on the left. I then sent an officer to General Gordon announcing our success, and that the Lynchburg road was open for the escape of the wagons, and that I awaited orders. Thereupon I received an order to withdraw, which I declined to do, supposing that General Gordon did not understand the commanding position which my troops occupied. He continued to send me order after order to the same effect, which I still disregarded, being under the impression that he did not comprehend our favorable location, until finally, I received a message from him, with an additional one as coming from General Lee, to fall back. I felt the difficulty of withdrawing without disaster and ordered Colonel J. R. Winston, commanding the skirmish line which had been posted in my front on first reaching these hills, to conform his movement to those of the division, and to move by the left flank so as to give notice of an attack from that quarter. I then ordered Cox to maintain his position in line of battle, and not to show himself until our rear was one hundred yards distant, and then to fall back in line of battle, so as to protect our rear and right flank from assault. I then instructed Major Peyton, of my staff, to start the left in motion, and I continued with the rear.

The enemy upon seeing us move off, rushed out from under cover with a cheer, when Cox's Brigade, lying concealed at the brow of the hill, rose and fired a volley into them which drove them back into the woods, the brigade then following their retreating comrades in line of battle unmolested. After proceeding about half the distance to the position occupied by us in the morning, a dense mass of the enemy in column (infantry) appeared on our right, and advanced, without firing, towards the earthworks captured by us in the early morning, when a battery of our artillery opened with grape and canister and drove them under the shelter of the woods.

As my troops approached their position of the morning, I rode up to General Gordon and asked where I should form line of battle. He replied, "Anywhere you choose." Struck by the strangeness of the reply, I asked an explanation, whereupon he informed me that we would be surrendered. I then expressed very forcibly my dissent to being surrendered, and indignantly upbraided him for not giving me notice of such intention, as I could have escaped with my division and joined General Joe Johnston, then in North Carolina. Furthermore, that I should then inform my men of the purpose to surrender, and that whoever desired to escape that calamity could go with me, and galloped off to carry this idea into effect. Before reaching my troops, however, General Gordon overtook me, and placing his hand upon my shoulder, asked me if I were going to desert the army and tarnish my own honor as a soldier and said that it would be a reflection upon General Lee and an indelible disgrace to me, if I, an officer of rank, should escape under a flag of truce, which was then pending. I was in a dilemma and knew not what to do, but finally concluded to say nothing on the subject to my troops.

Upon reaching them, one of the soldiers asked if General Lee had surrendered, and upon my answering that I feared it was a fact that we had been surrendered, he cast away his musket and holding his hands aloft cried in an agonized voice, "Blow, Gabriel, blow! My God, let him blow, I am ready to die!" We then went beyond the creek at Appomattox Court House, stacked arms amid the bitter tears of bronzed veterans, regretting the necessity of capitulation.

Among the incidents ever fresh in my memory of this fatal day to the Confederacy is the remark of a private soldier. When riding up to my old regiment to shake by the hand each comrade who had followed me through four years of suffering, toil, and privation often worse than death, to bid them a final affectionate, and, in many instances, an eternal farewell, a cadaverous, ragged, barefooted man grasped me by the hand, and choking with sobs said, "Good-bye, General; God bless you; we will go home, make three more crops and then try them again." I mention this instance simply to show the spirit, the pluck, and the faith of our men in the justice of our cause, and that they surrendered more to grim famine than to the prowess of our enemies.

That day and the next the terms of surrender were adjusted; the following day our paroles were signed and countersigned, and on Wednesday, April 12, 1865, we stacked our arms in an old field, and each man sought his home as best he might.

* * * * *

The foregoing account of the surrender at Appomattox was written to Major John W. Moore, at his request, November 5, 1879.

It was fit that North Carolina soldiers should have made the last charge; they were first at Bethel. The fight was between the mercantile civilization of the North, Europeanized by immigration and commerce, and the agricultural civilization of the South, Americanized by the necessity of its situation. Being most essentially an agricultural State, least contaminated by communion with the great cities, and least corrupted by the greed of trade and the favoritism of trade's ill-gotten legislation, North Carolina was the centre of the rebellion against the aggressions of the North, aggressions which furthered the European policy of consolidating our government and destroying the equality, first of the States, and then of individuals. Democracy is not now a menace to kingcraft across the Atlantic. Europe has won its fight. Its policy is now to secure the fruits of its victory by treaties and alliances.

It is no wonder that North Carolina resorted to arms with such decent caution and fought with such desperate valor--the stakes were great--she knew the meaning of the fight. If the South's statesmen had been equal to her warriors there would have been no war, because she would have been prepared for it--every State would have had a place to manufacture the best ships and arms. Her statesmen were great constitutional lawyers--but great lawyers and orators are not necessarily statesmen.

General Cox's account of "the last charge" differs in some particulars from that of General Grimes. Both statements appear together in Moore's _History of North Carolina_, to which the interested reader may refer.

DANIEL HARVEY HILL.

BY A. C. AVERY.

Daniel Harvey Hill was born in the York District in the State of South Carolina on the 21st of July, 1821. He traced his descent neither from the Cavaliers of England nor from the Huguenots of France, but from the sturdy sons of liberty-loving Scotland, who migrated to the north of Ireland and ultimately planted colonies in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North and South Carolina, where they educated, elevated, and dominated the people with whom they came in contact. His paternal grandfather, William Hill, a native of Ireland, had landed in Pennsylvania, and moving south with the stream of Scotch-Irish that populated the valley of Virginia and Western North Carolina, built, with Colonel Hayne as his partner, in 1770, an iron foundry in York District, which, within the next decade, was the only point south of Virginia where cannons were cast for the use of the colonial armies. He was colonel of a regiment in Sumter's Brigade, and fought gallantly under him in many engagements. While Colonel Hill was confined to his home by a wound received in battle a detachment was sent from the British force at Charleston to destroy his foundry, and he barely escaped with his life by hiding under a large log and covering himself with leaves. When the battle of King's Mountain was fought Colonel Hill's command had been disbanded, but he went to the field as a volunteer, and was honored by being invited to the council held by Campbell, Sevier, McDowell, and other distinguished regimental commanders, to determine the plan of attack. He made a number of suggestions that were adopted, which proved the value of his opinion as a soldier. For twenty years after the war Colonel Hill was the trusted representative of his district in the State Senate of South Carolina, and was the intimate friend of Patrick Calhoun, the father of the great statesman and orator, John C. Calhoun. General Hill's mother was Nancy Cabeen, the daughter of Thomas Cabeen, a native Scotchman, who was Sumter's trusted scout, and himself "the bravest man in his command," as the General himself often declared. Two uncles of General Hill were soldiers in the second war with England, and one of them was the adjutant of Colonel Arthur P. Hayne's Regiment. Solomon Hill, his father, died when his son Harvey was but four years old, leaving him, with four other children, to be reared by a mother who was noted for her piety, culture, common sense, and devotion. Like all Scotch and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of the old school, she exacted of her sons the most rigid observance of the Sabbath. Dr. John Hill, a somewhat wayward brother of General Hill, often declared, after he had reached middle age, that during his boyhood he always "took the blues on Thursday morning because Sunday was coming." The boys were required, each in his turn, to select and read a morning prayer when the family assembled for breakfast. Some of General Hill's heartiest laughs were provoked by the recollection of the ludicrous mistakes made by his little brother in his efforts to find and read the shortest petition in the book, without regard to its fitness for the occasion.

Sprung from a race of soldiers by the paternal as well as the maternal line, it is not strange that the earliest ambition of D. H. Hill led him to seek a place at West Point and to look forward to a military career. Under the rigid physical examination now prescribed for an applicant, he would have been rejected without hesitation. He entered the institution in 1838, and but for feeble health would have pressed to the very front of a class of which Generals Longstreet, A. P. Stewart, G. W. Smith, R. H. Anderson, and Van Dorn of the Confederate, and Rosecrans, Pope, Sykes, Doubleday, Stone, and Reynolds of the Federal army were members.

Graduating in 1842, he was still a second lieutenant when he was ordered with his command into active service in Mexico in August, 1845. During the three succeeding years he participated in nearly every battle fought by our forces under the command of either Scott or Taylor, and always attracted the notice of his superior officers by his conspicuous courage. He soon rose to the rank of first lieutenant, and, for gallant conduct at Contreras and Churubusco, was breveted captain. At Chapultepec he volunteered with the storming party, and so distinguished himself among the scores of brave men who participated with him in that desperate assault as to win for himself a second brevet as major. He was one of the six officers in the whole force employed in Mexico who were twice breveted for meritorious service upon the field. Animosity, envy, and a disposition to indulge in carping criticism have led to many unjust reflections upon General Hill, but the most unscrupulous of his detractors never questioned his courage or his integrity. When the Legislature of his native State provided by law that three swords should be awarded to the three bravest of her soldiers who had survived the war with Mexico, many letters and testimonials from the officers of the old army were voluntarily sent to the Chief Executive, naming D. H. Hill as among the bravest soldiers in the army of the United States. Among a few of these testimonials still extant is the letter from the gallant Bee, who, in exclaiming, a moment before he fell at Manassas, "There stands Jackson like a stone wall," gave to the great leader the pet name by which his soldiers called him and the world knows him, and thereby made himself immortal as its author. The letter addressed to General Dunavant on the 26th of October, 1856, is as follows:

It gives me great pleasure to add my mite of praise to that
which has already been given to Mr. Hill by his military
superiors. I had the pleasure of knowing him intimately and
serving with him in the storming party detailed from Twiggs'
Division for the attack on Chapultepec. I can bear full
testimony to his gallantry and to his ardent desire to do his
duty well. In addition, I can testify to his State pride,
evinced in his going up under a heavy fire to congratulate and
praise a member of the Palmetto regiment who was behaving under
fire most gallantly. For his services on that day he received
honorable mention from his immediate commanders and also from
Colonel Magruder, commanding a light battery, which battery
Lieutenant Hill offered to support when it was menaced by a body
of Mexican lancers. He received the brevet appointment of major,
and was considered a loss to the service when he resigned.

Your obedient servant,

BERNARD BEE,
_Captain U. S. Army._

From the scores of her surviving heroes of the Palmetto regiment and in the regular army the committee appointed by the State authorities selected Hill to receive one of the three swords awarded, and it is still preserved by his family.

After the close of the late war a Federal officer wrote to General Joseph E. Johnston, asking the name of a Confederate officer who, on the right of our army at Seven Pines, had made himself most conspicuous for his daring and indifference to danger. The only mark of distinction which he could give General Johnston was that he thought the officer rode a white horse. General Johnston replied that he supposed the officer referred to must have been General D. H. Hill. In writing to General Hill about the matter, General Johnston said: "I drew my conclusion that your horse might very well have been taken for white and that no man was more likely to expose himself than you. Do you know that in Mexico the young officers called you the bravest man in the army?"

When the war with Mexico ended Major Hill resigned his place in the army to accept the professorship of Mathematics in Washington College at Lexington, Virginia. Before assuming the duties of that place he was happily married, November 2d, 1852, to Isabella, oldest daughter of Rev. Dr. R. H. Morrison, and granddaughter of General Joseph Graham, who was a distinguished soldier of the Revolution and the father of Governor William A. Graham. Six years later, he was invited to take the same professorship at Davidson College, where for five years he was looked upon as the leading spirit amongst a corps of able and learned professors.

D. H. Hill was not a politician in the sense of aspiring to office or attempting to mould public opinion; but when he saw that the leaders of the North had determined that no Southerner should be allowed to take his slaves to the territory wrested from Mexico by the blood and treasure of the South as well as of the North, he believed that the irrepressible conflict, which Seward declared at a later day was being waged, had then begun, and would be settled only upon the bloody field of battle and after a prolonged, sanguinary, and doubtful struggle.

Fully persuaded that the inevitable conflict was near at hand, and that it was his solemn duty to prepare the rising generation of his adopted State to meet it he, in 1859, gave up his pleasant home and his congenial duties at Davidson College for those of commandant and manager of the Military Institute at Charlotte.

He harbored no unkind thought against the noble men and women of the North who held opinions different from his own. He respected even the honest fanatic, who fairly and openly contended for his convictions; but he hated cant and hypocrisy, despised duplicity and dishonesty, and leveled at them his most effective weapons, ridicule, and sarcasm. For that portion of our Northern brethren who came to the South to drive hard bargains with our people and cheat them by false pretenses, he felt and expressed the most sovereign contempt. For the men of the North who coveted the wealth of the Southern planter, and the women who envied their Southern sisters because of the ease and leisure incident to the ownership of slaves, he made no attempt to conceal his hatred and disgust.

Major Hill brought with him to Raleigh his three professors, Lee, Lane, and McKinney, two of whom fell later at the head of North Carolina regiments, and one of whom was the successor of the noble Branch as commander of one of our best and bravest brigades. He also brought with him almost the whole corps of cadets, whose services proved invaluable as drill-masters of the ten thousand volunteers then in the camp of instruction of which Hill took charge. For his services in the camp of instruction General Hill was allowed to select twelve companies to compose the first regiment of volunteers. The officers of these companies were all leading and influential citizens, and the rank and file were among the first young men in the State in intelligence, wealth, and social position. The service of six months proved a training-school for that splendid body of volunteers that ultimately placed them at the head of companies, regiments, brigades, and divisions. Among its original officers were Major-General Hoke, Brigadier-Generals Lane and Lewis, Colonels Avery, Bridgers, Hardy, W. W. McDowell, J. C. S. McDowell, Starr, Pemberton, Fuller, and a score of others, while a number from the rank and file fell at the head of both companies and regiments at later stages of the struggle.

In the outset of this discussion of the career of D. H. Hill as a Confederate soldier, I lay down and propose to maintain the proposition that from the time when he fought the first fight of the war with North Carolina soldiers on Virginia soil till the day he led the last attacking column of Confederates east of the Mississippi and checked Sherman's advance at Bentonsville, whatever may have been the general result of any engagement, the command of General D. H. Hill was never found when the firing ceased at night in the rear of the position it occupied when the signal of attack sounded in the morning. Apparently reckless in the exposure of his own person, no officer in our armies was more anxious about the health, happiness, and safety of his soldiers. His theory was that spades were instruments of defensive, bayonets of offensive, warfare, and whether the emergency demanded the use of the one or the other, it was to be done with "might and main." When his cadets had asked him whether they should join South Carolina regiments before their own State seceded he prophesied that the war would soon begin and would continue long enough to give every Southerner an opportunity to display his manhood. He rested his hope of success upon the belief that every son of the South would rush to the rescue; that our armies would be supplied by the labor of our slaves, and that we would thus be enabled to throw a force into the field sufficient to meet every Northern man who would tender his services to the Federal Government. Two important elements were wanting as a basis of his calculations--the Southern loyalist and the foreign substitute. When, therefore, General D. H. Hill reported to Colonel J. B. Magruder, then in charge of the Peninsula, and was assigned to the command of the defenses of Yorktown, he realized, in a measure at least, the magnitude of coming contest.

It has been said that a man who is himself born to command is quick to perceive in others the qualities that fit them for leadership. Colonel Hill seemed almost intuitively to descry in the ranks the coolness, courage, judgment, and power of prompt decision which others recognized in his favorites after they had led brigades and divisions to victory. On assuming command at Yorktown he soon discovered that the cavalry, which he looked upon as the "eye and the ear of the army," was inefficient, because the force was composed of a number of detached companies without a trained or efficient commander. In this emergency an officer of the old army, who had been commissioned lieutenant in the regular army of the Confederate States, reported for duty. Marking him as a man of promise, Colonel Hill at once caused an order to be issued placing Major John B. Hood in command of all the cavalry, and waited for the War Department to ratify the promotion and thus protect him in practicing a pardonable ruse on the volunteers. That officer ultimately succeeded Lieutenant-General D. H. Hill as the commander of a corps, and was still later placed in charge of the army of Tennessee. The Providence that has provided homes for his orphan children will in its own good time bring to light all the facts, and then John B. Hood will stand vindicated before the world as one of the best and bravest of all our leaders. It was this same gift that enabled General Hill to select from the lieutenants of his regiment Robert F. Hoke to be made a major of his regiment over ten competent captains. It was this intuitive perception of persistent pluck, dash, and coolness that prompted him to love and honor George B. Anderson, William R. Cox, Bryan Grimes, Stephen D. Ramseur, and Robert D. Johnston, and led him later to urge the advancement of Gordon, Colquitt, and Doles, of Georgia. In June, 1861 (a few days after the fight at Bethel), in a letter to his wife he said of Stonewall Jackson, then a colonel in command of a brigade, "I see that Jackson has had an engagement and taken many prisoners. I have predicted all along that Colonel Jackson would have a prominent place in the war."

On the 6th of June, 1861, Colonel Hill, then at Yorktown, was ordered to make a reconnaissance in force in the direction of Fortress Monroe, and he moved down with his own regiment and four companies of Richmond Howitzers under the command of Major G. W. Randolph (afterwards Secretary of War), to Little Bethel Church. Receiving information that Butler's forces were preparing to move up the Peninsula, Colonel Hill fell back to Big Bethel Church, where, with a small branch of Black river on his front and right flank and an almost impenetrable forest on his left, he used twenty-five spades and several hundred bayonets during the night in making an enclosed work. Ben. Butler had started five thousand men in three columns, with the confident expectation that two of the detachments would travel by roads passing north and south of the position at Little Bethel and form a junction two or three miles in the rear of it, where the roads traveled by these two detachments came together, while Duryea's Regiment of Zouaves would engage Hill in front till the other columns should unite and then press him in the rear in his expected retreat. Two of the detachments mistook each other in the night and engaged in a skirmish. The Zouaves, instead of following immediately upon the heels of the fugitive rebels, as contemplated by Butler, turned back and fled precipitately on hearing the firing in front of their own reserve line.

On the next day they again moved forward and attacked the force at Big Bethel, Colonel Magruder having meantime arrived with Cary's battalion of infantry. The whole force engaged on the Confederate side was eight hundred North Carolinians and four hundred Virginians; on the Federal side, thirty-five hundred, with from fifteen hundred to twenty-five hundred in reserve. After preliminary skirmishing for about two hours, and an attack that lasted two and a half hours longer, the enemy retreated in great confusion, with a loss of probably fifty killed and three hundred wounded, and were so hotly pursued by our cavalry that they scattered guns, haversacks and knapsacks till they crossed a bridge and stopped the pursuit by destroying it. The names of no soldiers of North Carolina should be inscribed in a more prominent place on the monument to be erected to her heroic dead than those of Henry L. Wyatt, the first offering of the South to the Lost Cause, and his three comrades, who rushed forward in a hail of shot and shell to destroy a house where the sharpshooters of the enemy had taken shelter. Judging of its importance by the numbers engaged and the losses on both sides, the battle of Bethel scarcely rose above the dignity of a skirmish; yet few events in the early history of the war had a more important influence upon the contests of the following year. The splendid bearing of our soldiers sent a thrill of pride to every Southern heart, and when the first battle of Manassas was fought, less than a month later, our soldiers moved forward in the confidence that Southern pluck would again prevail over a foe that had shown so little dash and confidence in this encounter.

There was on the Federal side at least one stout leader who displayed the spirit of a hero. When Major Theodore Winthrop fell within fifteen feet of our line, bravely leading a regiment in the charge, even a generous foe felt that he was worthy to bear the name of the two Winthrops by whose courage and judgment Americans had first gained a foothold in this country.

To know D. H. Hill as the soldier of iron nerve, who rode unmoved in showers of shot and shell, or rebuked in scathing terms a laggard or a deserter, was to understand nothing of his true nature. When the battle of Bethel was over and others were feasting or carousing, Hill had fallen upon his knees and was returning thanks to Almighty God, Who, he believed, directed the course of every deadly missile hurled by the enemy with the same unerring certainty that ordered the movements of the multitudes of worlds in the universe, and into whose keeping he daily committed himself, his wife, and little ones, his staff and his soldiers with the calm reliance of a child, that as a kind father He would provide what was best for him and them.

On the day after the fight at Bethel he wrote his wife: "I have to thank God for a great and decided victory, and that I escaped with a slight contusion on the knee.... It is a little singular that my first battle in this war should be at Bethel, where I was baptized and worshiped till I was sixteen years old--the church of my mother. Was she not a guardian spirit in the battle, averting ball and shell? Oh God, give me gratitude to Thee, and may we never dishonor Thee by weak faith!" Still later he wrote his wife: "I look for a battle about the first of October. Pray for me that I may be well. (He was then in delicate health).... We are in the hands of God, and as safe on the battle-field as anywhere else. We will be exposed to a heavy fire, but the arm of God is mightier than the artillery of the enemy."

After the battle Governor Ellis issued a commission of brigadier-general to him, as Governor Letcher had done at an earlier date in the case of Jackson, but President Davis delayed giving him the appointment till September, 1861. The response to a letter from his wife, written during this interval, in which she complained of the delay, shows how little the outer world understood his character or his motives: "You must not be concerned about my commission," he wrote. "I feel too distrustful of my own skill, coolness, and judgment. I have never coveted, and always avoided, positions of trust and responsibility. The offices that I have held have not been of my seeking."

Upon receiving his commission as a brigadier in September, 1861, the first work assigned to him was the command of the coast of North Carolina, with the duty, as far as possible, of constructing fortifications wherever necessary. Hopeless as was the task assigned, he brought all of his energies to bear upon it, and during the few months that he remained in North Carolina did so much to strengthen our forts and improve the discipline and spirit of the troops that the public men of the State asked for his return in every time of peril, until it became the custom of the general commanding to send him to his department south of the James when all was quiet on the Potomac, and recall him to the command of his division in the field when active operations were resumed.

His first connection with the Army of Northern Virginia was when, early in December, 1861, he was ordered to report to General Johnston at Manassas, and was assigned to command at Leesburg on the left of the line. While he was stationed there an incident occurred which evinced the strength and warmth of General Hill's affection for his early friends, even in the Federal army. General Stone was in charge of the force on the opposite side of the river, and after writing an official letter, sent under a flag of truce, General Hill appended a postscript to the effect that, if the fortunes of war should place his old academy chum in his custody he should feel more inclined to take him into his own tent than to consign him to prison. This led to the interchange of several kind messages appended to similar communications. Unfortunately Stone was a pronounced Democrat, and, like McClellan, was unwilling to recant or repent. Seizing upon this excuse, Stanton arrested him on a charge of disloyalty, and gave him no opportunity to vindicate himself till the close of the war, when he resigned and spent his last days in command of the army of the Khedive of Egypt.

On the night of the battle of Gaines' Mill, Major Clitz and General Reynolds, old army comrades of General Hill, were brought as prisoners to his quarters. He received both very kindly and sent for a surgeon to dress Major Clitz's wound, while he comforted Reynolds, who was mortified at being caught asleep, by reminding him that his gallant conduct in Mexico and on the border would protect his good name from a shade of suspicion. Both were placed in an ambulance, paroled to report to General Winder at Richmond, and furnished with the address of a friend of General Hill's who would honor their drafts for money. These incidents are reproduced because they bring to view traits of General Hill's character of which the world generally knows so little, his warm sympathy for suffering and his lasting and unswerving fidelity to his friends.

From the moment when Johnston placed Hill, then a major-general, at the head of a division in March, 1862, till the last shock of arms at Bentonsville, Hill's position on every march and in every battle, with scarcely a single exception, was the post of danger and honor. His was the first division of Johnston's army to enter Yorktown and the last to leave it and pass with his command through the reserve line. When the vanguard of the enemy, led by Hancock, rushed upon our rear at Williamsburg, it was Basil C. Manly, of Ramseur's Battery, who, seeing that a section of the enemy's light artillery might beat him in the race to occupy an earthwork midway between the two, unlimbered on the way and by a well-directed shot disabled the enemy _in transitu_, and as quick as thought limbered up again and ran into the fortifications. It was the regiment of Duncan K. MacRae, of D. H. Hill's Division, that extorted from the generous and gallant Hancock that memorable declaration, "The Fifth North Carolina and Twenty-fourth Virginia deserve to have the word _immortal_ inscribed on their banners." It was this charge which Early describes as "an attack upon the vastly superior forces of the enemy, which for its gallantry is unsurpassed in the annals of warfare."

When McClellan moved his army over Bottom's Bridge, threw a heavy column across the Chickahominy and extended his line towards the north of Richmond, General R. E. Lee was then acting as advisory commander of all the armies of the Confederacy. He concurred with Mr. Davis in the opinion that McClellan should be attacked on the other side of the Chickahominy before he matured his preparations for a siege of Richmond. (_The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government_, Vol. I, p. 120.) When General Lee communicated their views to General Johnston, he told Lee that his plan was to send A. P. Hill to the right and rear of the enemy and G. W. Smith to the left flank, with orders to make simultaneous attacks for the purpose of doubling up the army, and sending Longstreet to cross at Mechanicsville bridge and attack him in front. McClellan's line on his right was not then well fortified, and the general disposition of the Federal forces was more favorable for a Confederate advance than a month later, when Lee concentrated a heavy force on the left and turned it. After McDowell's movement to Hanover Court House, when his vanguard was checked by Branch, the blows stricken by Jackson in such rapid succession in the valley had excited apprehension so grave in the mind of Lincoln that, despite McClellan's protest, he ordered the withdrawal of that command to Fredericksburg for the protection of Washington City. For reasons that were unsatisfactory to the President, General Johnston, after marching and countermarching G. W. Smith's and Longstreet's Divisions, abandoned his first plan of operations and ordered the troops to assume substantially their original positions. President Davis, in his work _The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government_, takes the ground that after waiting a week and giving McClellan the opportunity to fortify, operations should have been delayed another day till the Chickahominy had risen high enough to sweep away the bridges and till Huger had had time to move up his artillery from his position near Richmond.

The popular impression that the bridges across the Chickahominy had already been swept away when the fight at Seven Pines began on the 30th of May, 1861, is totally unfounded. The corps of Heintzelman and Keyes were then south and that of Sumner north of the Chickahominy. The plan outlined by General Johnston was, briefly, that Huger should move from his camp near Richmond early on that morning down the Charles City road and vigorously attack the enemy's right, and that Longstreet and Hill, moving on the same road, should attack the center and left of the force south of the bridge, while G. W. Smith's Corps should advance on the Nine Mile Road and turn the left of Heintzelman and Keyes, if Sumner should not have arrived, or engage and prevent the junction of his with the other corps, if he should cross. Longstreet and Hill were in position to attack at an early hour, but waited till ten o'clock for the arrival of Huger, whose division, except two regiments of Rodes' (which created a diversion by a vigorous attack on the right), did not arrive in time to participate in the action. Our failure to destroy an enemy who, by a concerted movement in the forenoon, would have been utterly routed and driven from the field or captured was, as is universally conceded, one of the most palpable blunders of the war, but the question upon whose shoulders the blame rests still confronts us. No engagement of the war has given rise to more acrimonious censure and crimination than Seven Pines. Mr. Davis, General Johnston, General Longstreet, General Smith, and General Huger have each in turn discussed the conduct of both the active and passive leaders of that memorable day.

The future historians who shall make up for posterity their verdict upon the controverted points of the battle of Seven Pines will find one fact admitted by all of the disputants: that D. H. Hill was the hero of the occasion, and with his own gallant division, aided by two of Longstreet's brigades, drove the enemy in confusion from the breastworks and turned their own guns upon them as they retreated. Longstreet, who was in command on the right, generously said in his report: "The conduct of the attack was left entirely to Major-General Hill. The success of the affair is sufficient evidence of his ability, courage, and skill." Commenting upon the language of Longstreet, President Davis said: "This tribute to General Hill was no more than has been accorded to him by others who knew of his services on that day, and was in keeping with the determined courage, vigilance, and daring exhibited by him on other fields."

General Johnston's language was not less unequivocal in according to Hill the credit of making a very gallant and the only successful attack upon the enemy's works, when he said in his report: "The principal attack was made by Major-General Longstreet with his own and Major-General D. H. Hill's Division--the latter mostly in advance. Hill's brave troops, admirably commanded and most gallantly led, forced their way through the abattis which formed the enemy's external defenses and stormed their entrenchments by a most determined rush. Such was the manner in which the enemy's first line was carried. The operation was repented with the same gallantry and success as our troops pursued their victorious career through the enemy's successive camps and entrenchments. At each new position they encountered fresh troops and reenforcements brought from the rear. Thus they had to repel repeated efforts to retake works which they had carried, but their advance was never successfully resisted."

On the 31st of May, 1862, General R. E. Lee was assigned to the command of the army in place of General Johnston, who had been painfully wounded on the previous day, and immediately addressed himself to the arduous task of preparing for the decisive encounter, which could not be long delayed. His "exhibition of grand administrative talent and indomitable energy in bringing up that army in so short a time to that state of discipline which maintained its aggregation during those terrible seven days' fight around Richmond," says Colonel Chilton, was "his greatest achievement."

The order of battle in the memorable seven days' fight required A. P. Hill, when Jackson should pass down in rear of Mechanicsville, to cross at Meadow Bridge and drive the enemy so as to enable D. H. Hill to pass over the bridge at that village.

In obedience to messages from General Lee and President Davis, General Hill, after crossing, went forward with the brigade of Brigadier-General Ripley to cooperate with the division of General A. P. Hill. At the request of Brigadier-General Pender, Hill directed Ripley just at dark to act in concert with that dashing officer in the effort to turn the enemy's position at Ellison's Mill and drive him from it.

The desperate charge across an open field in the face of a murderous fire, in which that brave soldier and noble man, Colonel Montford S. Stokes of the First North Carolina Regiment, fell mortally wounded, was neither planned by General Hill nor executed under his directions. (_Official Records_, Series 1, Vol. XI, Part 2, p. 623.) The suggestion that General Hill deliberately and unnecessarily rushed those gallant men into danger is unfounded and unjust. The galling fire that had broken Pender's left called for immediate action, and in the hurry of the moment it became necessary to develop the strength of the enemy's position by assault instead of reconnaissance, but it was done under the orders of General Lee and the President, not of General Hill.