Originally aired on March 31, 1995 - In part 31 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson profiles General Ambrose Powell (A.P.) Hill, who was in command of the Petersburg sector of the Confederate defenses, and relates the fateful events of the morning of Sunday, April 2, 1865.
#31 – General A. P. Hill
Sunday, April 2, 1865, might have been a beautiful spring day in Virginia except for the explosions from hundreds of cannon and the screams from thousands of men engaged in battle at Petersburg. For 9 ½ months the heavily outnumbered Confederates had held their position. By that spring of 1865, the ever-thinning Southern line was like a rubber band stretched to the breaking point.
General Ambrose Powell Hill was painfully aware of the situation. He was in command of the Petersburg sector of the Confederate defenses. Lee could not have selected a more devoted officer. The fact that the hard-driving, hard-fighting Hill in the spring of 1865 was dying could not dampen his devotion to the Southern cause.
Powell Hill was then 39, a native of Culpepper, Virginia, and an 1847 graduate of West Point. The most outstanding event in his antebellum career had been his 1859 marriage to Kitty Morgan McClung, the sister of Kentucky’s famous soldier, John Hunt Morgan. Hill’s star had climbed steadily upward through the course of the Civil War. From colonel of the 13th Virginia in the summer of 1861, he was a major-general in command of the famous Light Division by the summer of 1862. Lee considered him the finest division commander in the Army of Northern Virginia.
Sometimes impetuous, always dauntless, A. P. Hill was to Lee an indispensable subaltern. Following the death of “Stonewall” Jackson in May, 1863, Hill moved up another notch to lieutenant-general and command of the Third Corps in the South’s most important army.
By then, “Little Powell” was a familiar figure to friend and foe. Five feet, nine inches tall, he weighed only 145 pounds. His curly hair was chestnut-colored and worn long. A full beard concealed his throat. Hazel eyes flashed in battle. Disdaining uniforms and insignia, Hill customarily wore calico shirts – his favorite in combat being dazzling scarlet in color.
Powell Hill’s attacks had opened battles at Mechanicsville, Gettysburg, and Bristoe Station. His presence won victories at Williamsburg and Cedar Mountain while staving off destruction at Antietam and Petersburg. In fact, and despite being hopelessly outnumbered, Hill won every battle of which he was a part in the long siege of Petersburg until that fateful morning on the second day of April.
Disease contracted while a West Point cadet had become active again at the midway point of the war. Since the summer of 1863, Hill had fought illness as often as he fought Yankees. His health had steadily deteriorated. Nevertheless, and in the face of blocked kidneys, excruciating pain, and the onset of fatal anemia, “Little Powell” continued to command and inspire his men.
On the night of April 1-2, 1865, General Grand unleashed a massive artillery bombardment as a prelude to a major infantry assault all along the Petersburg line. Thousands of Union soldiers charged at dawn; and like a river out of its banks, they swept over the Confederate earthworks. Barely able to walk, Hill mounted his horse and sought frantically to stabilize his lines in the early-morning light. It was about 6:30 a.m.; the dew was still on the grass when a Union soldier saw Hill and fired. The general died instantly from a bullet through the heart.
His death was obscured in the chaos associated with the fall of Richmond and Petersburg. His remains were twice buried before their final interment in 1892 beneath a statue to his honor in Richmond. The Hill monument is far from the other historical attractions of the former Confederate capital. Yet the bronze likeness atop that stone obelisk still stands defiant. Appropriately, the statue faces south – toward the land for which Powell Hill have his life.
