that the original draft of the order contained only the portion
beginning with the third section and was signed in that shape by
Colonel Chilton, but was afterwards modified so as to prefix the
two first paragraphs before it was issued. The "lost order" was
found by an Indiana soldier, wrapped around three cigars. The first
paper drawn would have become useless after the material additions
made to it, and might well have been wrapped around cigars by some
one at General Lee's headquarters, with the purpose of using it
to light them, and then lost before cigars or paper were disposed
of, as intended. It will be more readily believed that a clerk
or assistant in the office at army headquarters might have been
guilty of carelessness than that Ratchford swore to and that Hill
told a falsehood. If their positive statements are believed, only
the one order, addressed as though sent through General Jackson's
headquarters, was received by General Hill. When Lee and Hill were
encamped in sight of each other near Fredericktown, and General Lee
was then and afterwards (as at South Mountain) habitually sending
orders direct to General Hill, it does not seem probable that Lee,
whose forte was the power of readily mobilizing his army, would have
tolerated such circumlocution as making one courier ride across
the Potomac to Jackson with an order which was to be sent back by
another messenger to a camp in sight of its starting point on the
next day. It would have been a fair compromise between extreme
official courtesy and that common sense which always characterized
the conduct of our great leaders, if Lee had recognized Jackson's
authority by addressing the order as though transmitted through him,
and at the same time ordering its delivery directly to Hill, thus
conforming his conduct to the conditions which demanded that Hill
should know at the earliest possible moment of his proposed plan of
operation, and of the prohibition against entering the neighboring
town applying only to his own and Longstreet's Division.
The direct testimony bearing upon the dispute in reference to the
lost order was the sworn statement of Major James W. Ratchford,
Adjutant-General, that only the single copy of the order reached
him, which was preserved by General Hill till his death, and the
solemn statement of Hill that he himself received no other copy.
Leaving out of view the difference between the original paper
recorded in Lee's book and the supposed copy delivered to McClellan,
there is nothing to contradict the testimony of one of the bravest
and truest officers in the army of Virginia and the word of D.
H. Hill. The attention of these two officers had been called to
the loss of the paper within a few months after it passed into
McClellan's hands, when all that had occurred in Maryland was still
fresh in their memories, and they then made the same statement that
the one reiterates to-day and the other published in 1886. Lee
himself charged no particular person with the loss of the dispatch.
While he possibly magnified (says Longstreet in his article in the
_Century Magazine_) its effect upon the Maryland campaign, he was
inclined to attribute its loss to the fault of a courier. (_Battles
and Leaders of the Civil War_, Vol. II, p. 674.) In his report of
the operations in Maryland he said: "The small command of General
Hill repelled repeated assaults of the Federal army and held it
in check for five hours." The only contradicting testimony comes
from Major Taylor of General Lee's staff, and being negative in its
character, is not entitled to the weight that should be attached to
the positive evidence of gentlemen of equal reputation for veracity.
The substance of his statement is, that it was his habit during
that campaign to send such orders directly to the headquarters of
Hill's Division as well as through Jackson to Hill. But he neither
recalls the fact of sending the particular paper in question,
nor does he name any officer or courier who attests its actual
delivery. Admitting the high character of Taylor, as well as that of
Ratchford, the verdict of history, under the most familiar rules of
evidence, must unquestionably acquit Hill of negligence, and accord
to him the high honor of saving the army of Lee by his strategy,
coolness, and courage.
At Sharpsburg, the last engagement in which D. H. Hill participated
with that army, no figure was more conspicuous and no line firmer
than his. As usual, he was the first to open and the last to quit
the fight. General Lee said in his report: "The attack on our left
was speedily followed by one in heavy force on the center. This was
met by part of Walker's Division and the brigades of G. B. Anderson
and Rodes of D. H. Hill's command, assisted by a few pieces of
artillery. The enemy were repulsed and retired behind the crest of
a hill, from which they kept up a desultory fire. At this time, by
a mistake of orders, General Rodes' Brigade was withdrawn from its
position during the temporary absence of that officer at another
part of the field. The enemy immediately passed through the gap
thus created and G. B. Anderson's Brigade was broken and retired,
General Anderson himself being mortally wounded.... The heavy masses
of the enemy again moved forward, being opposed by only four pieces
of artillery, supported by a few hundred men belonging to different
brigades, rallied by General D. H. Hill and other officers, and
parts of Walker's and R. H. Anderson's commands, Colonel Cooke of
the Twenty-seventh North Carolina Regiment, of Walker's Brigade,
standing boldly in line without a cartridge." "At this critical
moment, when the enemy was advancing on Cooke," says General
Longstreet, "a shot came across the Federal front, plowing the
ground in a parallel line, then another and another, each nearer and
nearer their line. This enfilade fire was from a battery on D. H.
Hill's line, and it soon beat back the attacking column." (_Battles
and Leaders of the Civil War_, Vol. II, p. 670.)
On the right General Lee was stationed in person, and with Toombs'
Brigade (says General Longstreet) held the enemy in check till A.
P. Hill's Division rushed to the rescue, with Pender on the right
and Branch on the left of his line, and aided by well-directed
shots from a battery planted by D. H. Hill on his front, drove
them back in confusion. Generals Lee, Longstreet, and D. H. Hill
concluded during a short suspension of musketry fire to reconnoiter
the position of the enemy from the crest of a ridge in front of
the Confederate line, which was formed behind a fence. Lee and
Longstreet giving General Hill a sufficiently wide berth, went out
on foot, while Hill rode. In a few moments, says Longstreet, Hill
was making vain and rather ludicrous efforts to dismount from the
third horse killed under him in that engagement, the legs of the
animal having been cut off at the knees by a cannon ball. When
Major Ratchford, who himself was never known to quail in the face
of the foe, but whose affection for his friend was unbounded, said
to him on this occasion: "General, why do you expose yourself so
recklessly? Do you never feel the sensation of fear?" General Hill
replied that he would never require his men to go where he did not
know the ground or would not go himself, and that he had no fear of
death if he met it in the line of duty. His friend then inquired if
he would not rather live than die. "Oh, yes," said General Hill,
"when I think of my wife and babies I would; but God will take care
of them if he allows anything to happen to me."
When, in November, 1862, Hill's Division was ordered to take the
lead in the march to Fredericksburg to meet Hooker, a large number
of his men had been barefooted since the return of the army from
Maryland, yet he accomplished the unusual feat of marching two
hundred miles in twenty days without leaving on the way a single
straggler. One of the remarkable features of the battle of December
13th, 1862, near Fredericksburg, which followed this sudden transfer
of the seat of war, was the fact that D. H. Hill's Division, Jubal
A. Early's and most of John B. Hood's were in the reserve line. It
was evidence of an easy victory that the services of three such
fighting men were not needed in front.
In February, 1863, Hill bade a final adieu to his old division, when
he was ordered to assume command in the State of North Carolina.
Before the campaign opened in the following spring Hill had made
a demonstration against New Bern, followed by an advance upon
Washington in this State, which would have resulted in the capture
of the latter place but for Lee's order to send a portion of his
command to Virginia.
Later in the spring of 1863, Hill was ordered to remove his
headquarters to Petersburg, and was placed in command of the
department extending from the James to the Cape Fear. When Lee
invaded Pennsylvania the citizens of Richmond and the heads of the
various departments became greatly alarmed for the safety of the
place. The officers in charge of the defenses of the city and of
the Peninsula had failed to inspire confidence in their vigilance,
efficiency or capacity. When the troops of Dix began to move up the
Peninsula from Yorktown and West Point, General Hill was ordered by
the President to transfer all available troops from south of the
James and assume command of the forces gathered for the defense of
the capital city. With the brigades of Cooke and M. W. Ransom, and a
few other regiments, General Hill met the army of Dix near Bottom's
Bridge, drove them back without serious difficulty in the direction
of West Point, and in two or three days restored perfect confidence
on the part of the panic-stricken people of the city.
About the 10th of July, 1863, President Davis called at General
Hill's quarters three miles east of Richmond, and, after many
kind and complimentary comments upon his conduct as an officer
during the preceding year, informed him that he was appointed a
lieutenant-general, and would be ordered to report forthwith to
General Joseph E. Johnston, near Vicksburg, Mississippi. Orders
having been issued accordingly, on the 13th of July General Hill,
with his staff, set out immediately for his new field. When he
reached his home in Charlotte he was notified that his destination
had been changed, and he would report for duty to General Braxton
Bragg at Chattanooga.
Lieutenant-General D. H. Hill found the army of Bragg encamped along
the Tennessee River in and around the small town which has since
assumed the proportions of a city. Colonel Archer Anderson, chief of
Hill's staff, in his able address upon the battle of Chickamauga,
says: "The corps of Hardee had lately gained as a commander a stern
and dauntless soldier from the Army of Northern Virginia in D.
H. Hill, whose vigor, coolness and unconquerable pertinacity in
fight had already stamped him as a leader of heroic temper. Of the
religious school of Stonewall Jackson, his earnest convictions never
chilled his ardor for battle, and in another age he would have been
worthy to charge with Cromwell at Dunbar, with the cry, 'Let God
arise and let his enemies be scattered.'"
Hill received from Bragg the warm welcome of a comrade who had
seen his metal tried on the hard-fought fields of Mexico. Not less
cordial was the greeting of his old classmate, A. P. Stewart, and
of the plucky Pat. Cleburne, who seemed from the first to feel that
he had found a soldier-affinity in the congenial spirit of Hill.
When at last the scattered hosts had concentrated and confronted
each other on the Chickamauga, it was not till after the night of
the first day that Bragg made public his purpose to give the entire
management of the right wing to Polk and the control of the left to
Longstreet. If the enemy's left, under the stalwart Thomas, could be
driven from the Lafayette road the communication with Chattanooga
would be cut off and the retreat and ruin of the enemy inevitable.
To accomplish this end Bragg seemed more intent on hurried than
concentrated effort. That grand man, officer and statesman, John C.
Breckinridge, at his own request was allowed to take the extreme
right, flanked by Forrest and supported in this forward movement by
Cleburne on the left. Stewart having been transferred to Buckner,
these two divisions constituted Hill's Corps. In rear of the line
from which Breckinridge and Cleburne moved to the attack at nine
in the morning, on the last decisive day, was the corps of the old
veteran known as "Fighting Bill" Walker, and as eager for the fray
as a school-boy for frolic. His command was composed of his own and
Liddell's Divisions, embracing six brigades, led by such dashing
soldiers as Ector, Gist, and Walthall. But the first lesson learned
by a staff officer, who went from the East to the West, was that
even an old war-horse like Walker dared not to fire a gun or move an
inch, acting upon his own best judgment, without an order brought
with due formality through all of the regular channels. The Virginia
Brigadier struck his blows where opportunity offered and reported to
his superior that he was striking. The Western Brigadier lost his
opportunity to strike waiting for permission to do so. Still behind
Walker stood Frank Cheatham, with his splendid division, like their
leader, chafing under restraint.
Such were the dispositions in Hill's rear when the impetuous charge
of Breckinridge's two right brigades broke the left of Thomas and
crossed the fateful road. With two thousand infantry and a battery
of artillery, Breckinridge swung his line around at a right angle
to that of the enemy and started to sweep down upon their flank;
but the left of Breckinridge had encountered an earthwork, as
had Cleburne's whole line, and their western foe standing firm,
one or two brigades gave way. Another advancing line to fill the
gap, and the day would be won before noon, and the enemy driven
across the Tennessee or captured before night. In vain might Hill
plead or Walker swear, when no orders came and no chief could be
found to give them. Chafed and disappointed, the grand Kentuckian
found himself for want of support at last exposed to destruction
or capture, and slowly and stubbornly both he and Cleburne fell
back and reformed, but much nearer to the enemy than the line from
which they advanced. Scarcely had the decimated forces of Hill
reformed when, all too late, Walker went forward with another
single line, to be hurled back by the fresh troops that the enemy
was rapidly massing on his left to meet the design now developed by
our ill-managed movement. Cheatham, meanwhile, was not allowed to
budge an inch or fire a gun. Thus was the plan frustrated and the
attacking force driven back and cut to pieces in detail for want of
a present, active, moving head to strike with the two arms of the
right wing at one time. The fierce onslaught of Hill failed, as did
the no less impetuous charge of Walker, because as a chain is no
stronger than its most defective link, so a single advancing line is
no stouter than its weakest point.
The splendid conduct of our troops on our right and the dread
inspired by Breckinridge's bold charge of the morning bore fruit,
however, in a way entirely unexpected, when it led the enemy to
mass so much of his force behind Thomas. This was the occupation of
the enemy while Hill and Forrest were riding up and down in front
of our line and drawing the fire of the enemy upon the young troop
who followed at their heels, and when there was a temporary lull in
front of Longstreet on the left and left center.
At last the thunder of artillery and the roar of musketry again
burst upon us from along the whole front of the Virginia lieutenant,
while Hill in vain sent messenger after messenger to beg that these
lines be formed and a general advance ordered on the right as well
as on the left. Just before night General Polk permitted Hill to
take charge of the forward movement of the three lines, Walker in
front, his own corps composing the second and Cheatham the third.
The advance of our attacking column on the left, before that time
steady, now became impetuous, and with a momentary wavering of a
brigade on the right, we rushed over the breastworks of Thomas and
caught 5,000 prisoners in the angle, where Longstreet and Hill
met, as they had on many hard-fought fields before, to discuss the
events of that day and prepare, as they had hoped, for a still more
eventful one that was to follow. But a short time had elapsed when
they were joined by Forrest, impatient for orders to pursue the
flying foe. When some hours had been passed in the vain effort to
learn where the headquarters of the commanding general were located,
Longstreet and Hill agreed to divide the responsibility of ordering
the immediate pursuit by Forrest, with an assurance that they would
ask the privilege of pushing forward to his support at early dawn.
Unable by the most diligent inquiry to open communication with
Bragg till the next afternoon, they failed to secure for Forrest
the infantry support that would have swept the single division of
Thomas out of the gap on Missionary Ridge, or flanked and captured
it, without another obstruction in the road to Chattanooga and on
to Nashville. Such might have been the fruits of our victory, which
being lost by delay, the last hope of the tottering Confederacy to
regain the prestige and restore the confidence lost at Gettysburg
and Vicksburg was gone forever.
Scattered along the face of Missionary Ridge, waiting for the enemy
to make Chattanooga impregnable, and then uniting the forces of
Grant and Sherman with the reorganized army of Thomas to overwhelm
them, were the disheartened Confederates, daily growing weaker from
the desertion of men whose homes were exposed to devastation by the
Federals.
It was at this juncture that Buckner drew up and Polk, Longstreet,
Hill, Buckner, Cleburne, Cheatham, Brown, and other generals signed
and sent to the president a petition stating that the commanding
general had lost the confidence of the army, and asking that he be
transferred to another command and replaced by a more acceptable
leader. Hill was the last of the lieutenant-generals consulted, but,
unfortunately for his future, his headquarters were located at a
central point on the line and the paper was left there to be signed.
Cheatham and Cleburne met at that point and put their names to the
paper at the same time. After the battle at Murfreesboro, Bragg had
addressed letters to the chiefs of divisions in his army, asking
whether he retained the confidence of the troops, and intimating a
willingness to resign if he had lost it. Breckinridge, Cleburne, and
one or two others promptly answered that they thought he could no
longer be useful in the position he occupied. The correspondence led
to an open breach between Bragg and Breckinridge, and a newspaper
controversy, in which each charged upon the other the responsibility
of our failure at Murfreesboro. General Breckinridge, in a
conversation with me, stated that his reason for declining to sign
the paper was that his opinion of the commanding general was known,
and, as their relations were already unfriendly, his motives might
be misconstrued.
No better illustration of the prevailing opinion among the higher
officers, as well as the rank and file of the army, in reference
to the efficiency of the commanding general can be given than the
substance of a conversation between Cheatham and Cleburne, as they
joined in a social glass after signing the petition: "Here are
my congratulations upon your recovery from your bad cold," said
Cleburne. "I have had no bad cold," said Cheatham. "Let me tell you
an old fable," replied Cleburne. "The report had been circulated
among the beasts of the forest that the lion had a bad breath;
whereupon, as king, the lion summoned all to appear, and admitted
them to his presence one by one. As each would answer, upon smelling
his breath, that it was bad, the lion would devour him. When at
length the fox was brought in, he replied to the question that
he had a bad cold, and escaped. You had a bad cold when you wrote
Bragg after the battle of Murfreesboro that you didn't know whether
he still retained the confidence of the army. You have at last
recovered."
Hill cherished no unkind feeling toward Bragg, and at the time
reluctantly reached the conclusion that it was his duty to join his
comrades in urging his removal, hoping that it might still be within
the range of possibility to find a leader like Jackson, who could
overcome superior numbers by vigilance, celerity, and strategy.
Mr. Davis was induced to believe that Hill was the originator and
most active promoter of the plan to get rid of Bragg as a chief,
and both the President and General Bragg determined to visit the
whole sin of the insubordination of the inferior officers of that
army on him. His name was not sent to the Senate for confirmation
as lieutenant-general, and the repeated efforts of Johnston, backed
by many of his subordinates, to have Hill returned to the command
of a corps, were refused up to the last campaign of Johnston in
North Carolina. In response to repeated demands made upon Bragg
and the Adjutant for a court of inquiry to report upon any charge
or criticism that the latter might make, Hill at last received the
answer that there were no charges to be investigated.
But it is due to the memory of General Hill that the world should
know how thoroughly he retained the confidence, respect and
admiration of the officers and men of the army, which Bragg left
after the next fight, never to rejoin till he found Hill on the soil
of his own State leading its reduced regiments in their last forlorn
charge against their old foe.
The following letters, for which he did not ask, but which he
treasured as testimonials of his relations to his troops to the day
of his death, are submitted for the first time for the vindication
of his memory against the suspicion of negligence, inefficiency,
incompetency or infidelity to his trust as commander of a corps:
HEADQUARTERS CLEBURNE'S DIVISION,
MISSION RIDGE, October 9, 1863.
_General_:--In your departure from the army of Tennessee, allow
me to offer you my grateful acknowledgments for the uniform
kindness that has characterized all your official intercourse
with my division. Allow me also to express to you the sincere
regard and high confidence with which in so short a time you
succeeded in inspiring both myself and, I believe, every officer
and man in my command.
It gives me pleasure to add that now, though your connection
with this army has ended, you still retain undiminished the
love, respect and confidence of Cleburne's Division.
Respectfully, your friend,
P. R. CLEBURNE,
_Major-General_.
_Dear General_:--I have just learned officially that you have
been relieved from command in this army and ordered to report to
Richmond.
I cannot see you go away without sending you, in an unofficial
and friendly note, the expression of my sincere regret at our
separation. It has the merit of at least being disinterested.
I saw you for the first time on my way to this army from
Mississippi, when my division became a part of your corps, and
I have had more than one occasion to express my admiration
for your fidelity to duty, your soldierly qualities, and your
extraordinary courage on the field.
It may gratify you to know the opinion of one of your
subordinates, and to be assured that, in his opinion, they are
shared by his division. I am, General,
Very truly, your friend,
JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE,
_Major-General_.
HEADQUARTERS CORPS ARMY OF TENNESSEE,
October 15, 1863.
_My Dear General_:--Your note of to-day is received. I am
surprised and grieved to learn that you have been relieved from
duty with this army. We have stood side by side on so many
severely contested battle-fields that I have learned to lean
upon you with great confidence.
I hope and trust that you may find some other position where
your services may be as useful as they can be here. * * *
Very truly and sincerely yours,
J. LONGSTREET.
HEADQUARTERS CLAYTON'S BRIGADE,
NEAR CHATTANOOGA, 3 November, 1863.
_Lieutenant-General D. H. Hill_:--Returning to my command a few
days ago, I regretted to learn that you had left the command of
our corps, and that I had not the opportunity of telling you
farewell.
I have been in the military service since the 6th of February,
1861, and I have never been under a commander to whom I and
my command formed so strong an attachment in so short a space
of time. In the camp we were not afraid to approach you, and
on the field _you_ were not afraid to approach us and even go
beyond us. This feeling was universal among privates as well as
officers and to a greater degree than I have ever known towards
any one except, perhaps, General Stuart. Those who have been in
the military service and been _frozen to death_ by a different
class of officers, alone know how fully to appreciate this.
Your friend and obedient servant,
H. D. CLAYTON.
HEADQUARTERS POLK'S BRIGADE,
October 16, 1863.