Lives of Distinguished North Carolinians, with Illustrations and Speeches

by Unknown

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.