Part 2

, p, 496): "Orders were issued for a general advance at a given signal, but the causes referred to prevented a proper concert of action among the troops. D. H. Hill pressed forward across the open field and engaged the enemy gallantly, breaking and driving back his first line; but a simultaneous advance of the other troops not taking place, he found himself unable to maintain the ground he had gained against the overwhelming numbers and numerous batteries of the enemy. Hill was therefore compelled to abandon a part of the ground he had gained after suffering severe loss and inflicting heavy damage upon the enemy."

Prompt, vigilant, and obedient, he was always at his post at the appointed hour, and with the true conception of soldierly duty, moved upon order or signal of his superiors without waiting to count the cost. At Malvern Hill, as at Seven Pines, he charged the enemy under orders from the commanding general. The persistent pluck of his brave men, developed to the highest degree of his own unequaled coolness and courage, enabled him again to take and hold much of the enemy's outer line till after the last gun was fired.

When Pope had twice been punished by Jackson and driven back upon the supposed stronghold at Manassas, the transfer of troops from the Federal army on the Peninsula made it necessary for General Lee to move with the bulk of his army to the support of his dashing lieutenant, who had already twice defeated an enemy much stronger numerically than himself. D. H. Hill, recalled from the command of his department south of the James, which included his own State, and placed at the head of his old division, was ordered to watch and check the movements of McDowell's command, which was still occupying Fredericksburg, and consequently took no part in the second battle of Manassas.

Crossing over the Potomac with Longstreet to Fredericktown, Maryland, when our forces moved from that point south General Hill was ordered to occupy and hold a pass in the South Mountains, which, if gained by McClellan, would have enabled him to relieve Harper's Ferry and possibly to prevent the junction of our scattered army and destroy the divisions in detail, or drive them precipitately south of the Potomac with great loss of artillery and transportation.

General Lee's object in crossing the Potomac east of the Blue Ridge was to induce the enemy, by threatening Washington and Baltimore, to evacuate Martinsburg and Harper's Ferry, and to establish his own line of communication through the valley, and then by advancing towards Pennsylvania to draw the enemy away from his own base of supplies. General Lee had not contemplated making a stand at South Mountain, probably not at Sharpsburg, or at any point north of the Potomac; but the continued occupation of Martinsburg and Harper's Ferry made it necessary to move directly upon the former place and to invest the latter, where both garrisons ultimately united. In consequence of the delay in reducing the garrison it became essential to the safety of Lee's army that McClellan's entire force should be held in check for a whole day at the pass in the South Mountains by Hill's depleted division, now numbering only four thousand, as a glance at the map with a knowledge of the disposition of Lee's different divisions will show.

Longstreet, with his whole force, estimated at four thousand, was at Hagerstown, while Jackson had disposed his own command, including McLaws' and A. P. Hill's Divisions, either with a view to an attack on Harper's Ferry or to cutting off the retreat of the force occupying it. Three days later McClellan, according to his own report, advanced to the attack at Sharpsburg with eighty-seven thousand men. Of this vast army probably thirty-three thousand were in the force actually engaged in the assault upon the little Spartan band of D. H. Hill for five hours, without cessation, before Longstreet's advance brigade arrived at 3:30 o'clock, which was followed by others coming up from that time till dark.

The late Justice Ruffin, Colonel of the Thirteenth North Carolina, standing by the side of the gallant Garland when he was instantly killed, discovered a moment later that the other regiments of the brigade had retired, leaving his command surrounded by the enemy. Facing to the rear in an instant, he ordered his regiment to charge, and though embarrassed by a painful wound, performed the desperate feat of cutting his way through the serried ranks of the enemy. A few moments later that gallant officer was astonished to hear his intrepid commander express his delight at the discovery that McClellan's whole army was approaching his front. The explanation afterwards given was one that could have been safely disclosed only to a kindred spirit, such as Ruffin had shown himself to be. Hill then said that he had at first feared the movement upon his front was a feint, and that the main body of the enemy had passed through another gap and might be thrown between Jackson and Lee. The situation was still further embarrassed by the fact that General Stuart had at daylight withdrawn his command, except the single regiment of Rosser, which afterwards did its duty so nobly, under the impression that but a small force was in General Hill's front.

It was "with the stern joy" of an intrepid warrior waiting for the coming contest, that from an elevated pinnacle of the mountain he saw the four advance corps of the grand Army of the Potomac, one of which was forming at the foot of the mountain. The hour and the man had met when Lee entrusted to Hill the duty of holding the approach against that army with his little band of four thousand. From Seven Pines to Malvern Hill they had never turned their backs upon the foe. They believed that their leader would require them to endure no sacrifice or face no danger that was not demanded by the inevitable exigencies of the situation. With God's help, Hill determined to save the army, as his chief ordered him to do at any sacrifice, and, if the emergency had demanded his own life, he would have met death, not as the decree of fate, but as the Providence of God, who had brought him face to face with a desperate duty. Captain Seaton Gales, the gallant Adjutant-General of George B. Anderson on that memorable day, summarized the important results of this battle as follows:

"It may be safely said that in its consequences, in the accomplishments of predetermined objects, and in the skillful disposition of small numbers to oppose overwhelming odds, it is without a parallel in the war. The division, unaided until a late hour in the afternoon, held in check the greater portion of McClellan's vast army endeavoring with battering-ram impetus to force its way through the narrow gap, and thereby afforded time for the concentration of our various corps, dispersed in strategic directions, in season for the bloody issue at Sharpsburg."

Imbued with an earnest devotion to the cause, which rose on occasion to the height of enthusiasm, Hill did not hesitate to denounce in unmeasured terms those who evaded duty in our armies, when the conditions were such as to plainly demand the active service of every able-bodied son of the South. One of his random shots at the "bomb-proofs" of the Confederacy wounded a gentleman who, having done nothing in the war worthy to be written, determined to write something, in the vain hope that it would be read by future generations. Prompted by petty revenge, he recklessly asserted that General D. H. Hill had thrown a copy of a general order upon the ground in his camp at Frederick City, which being afterwards picked up and handed to McClellan, gave him an idea of the movements and location of the different portions of Lee's army.

It will appear from an inspection of its contents that on the day when McClellan attacked Hill at South Mountain, he had reason to believe, and must have thought, that Longstreet was occupying the mountains, supported by Hill. But we are not left to conjecture on that subject. McClellan wrote General Franklin from Frederick City on the 14th, just after he had read the "lost order," that Longstreet was to move to Boonsborough, and there halt with D. H. Hill, and he therefore directed Franklin to make his dispositions with an eye both to the relief of the garrison at Harper's Ferry and the capture of Longstreet and Hill. The plan outlined in the letter is predicated upon the supposition that Longstreet and Hill were together, and constituted the main body of an army, which he estimated in another report to General Halleck at one hundred and twenty thousand. If it were not manifest from this letter that McClellan was misled by the order, and his opinion corroborated by the skillful disposition of Hill's troops, his report proves beyond all question that he thought the force in his front was thirty thousand strong, composed of Hill's Division, fifteen thousand, with Longstreet's and a portion of Jackson's command (_Official Records_, Series 1, Vol. XIX,