DANIEL H. HILL.

[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.