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.

When on the second day Jackson had effected a junction with Lee, Hill was selected to relieve his tired troops by passing rapidly to his left and turning the extreme right of the enemy. A. P. Hill, Longstreet, Whiting, and Jackson had successively moved upon the double lines of infantry and artillery posted on the range of hills behind Powhite Creek from the McGehee to the Gaines house. The approach of the attacking columns of A. P. Hill and Whiting was in part over a plain about four hundred yards wide and was embarrassed by abattis and ditches in front of the first line. The struggle along the front of these divisions and that of Longstreet had become doubtful, and almost desperate, when the troops of Jackson and Hill created a diversion by engaging the extreme right of the enemy. The first of the lines of entrenchments had been taken, and Longstreet, Hood, Law, and other brave leaders were moving on the last stronghold in the enemy's center, when the victorious shouts of Garland's and G. B. Anderson's Brigades of Hill's Division were followed by the rapid retreat of the enemy and the surrender, first of the ridge at the McGehee house, and then of their whole line. Thus did it fall to the lot of Hill once more to strike the decisive blow at a critical moment. But claiming for him this distinction among a host of heroic commanders, it is proper that I should rely on the evidence of the lamented Garland, who sealed his devotion to the cause with his heart's blood at South Mountain, and the corroborating accounts of Hill's superiors, from Jackson to President Davis, and not on my own assertion.

"The effect of our appearance at this opportune moment upon the enemy's flank, cheering and charging," said Garland in his report, "decided the fate of the day. The enemy broke and retreated and made a second stand, which induced my immediate command to halt under cover of the roadside and return the fire, when charging forward again we broke and scattered them in every direction." This discomfiture uncovered the left of the fortified line and left no obstacle between Hill and the McGehee house. (_Official Records_, Series 1, Vol. XI,