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| 8.5" X 11" Limited Edition Print Signed and Numbered (of 100) |
| Ambrose Powell Hill |
| A.P. Hill, known to his soldiers as Little Powell, was born in Culpeper, Virginia. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1847, ranking 15th in a class of 38 graduates. Appointed to the 1st U.S. Artillery as a second lieutenant, he served in the Mexican-American War and Seminole Wars and was promoted to first lieutenant in September 1851. From 1855 to 1860, Hill was employed on the United States' coast survey. In 1859, he married Kitty Morgan McClung, a young widow, thus becoming the brother-in-law of future Confederate cavalry generals John Hunt Morgan and Basil W. Duke. In March 1861, just before the outbreak of the Civil War, Hill resigned his U.S. Army commission. When Virginia seceded, he was appointed colonel of the 13th Virginia Infantry Regiment and distinguished himself on the field of First Bull Run. He was promoted to brigadier general and command of a brigade in the (Confederate) Army of the Potomac the following February. In the Peninsula Campaign of 1862, he gained further promotion following his performance at the Battle of Williamsburg, and as a major general, Hill was one of the most prominent and successful division commanders of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Hill's Light Division (which was actually one of the largest in the army) distinguished itself in the Seven Days Battles, Cedar Mountain, Second Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburg. His division formed part of Stonewall Jackson's corps; after Jackson was mortally wounded at Chancellorsville in May 1863, Hill briefly took command of the corps and was wounded himself. After Jackson's death, Hill was promoted to lieutenant general and placed in command of the newly created Third Corps of Lee's army, which he led in the Gettysburg Campaign of 1863, the autumn campaign of the same year, and the Overland Campaign and Petersburg siege of 1864–65. He once said he had no desire to live to see the collapse of the Confederacy, and on April 2, 1865 (just seven days before Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House), he was killed by a Union soldier, Corporal John W. Mauck of the 138th Pennsylvania, as he rode to the front of the Petersburg lines, accompanied only by a lone staff officer. A.P. Hill was one of the war's most highly regarded generals on either side. When Hill was a major general, Robert E. Lee wrote that he was the best at that grade in the Army. He had a reputation for arriving on battlefields (such as Antietam, Cedar Mountain, and Second Bull Run) just in time to prove decisive and achieve victory. Stonewall Jackson on his deathbed deliriously called for A.P. Hill to "prepare for action"; some histories have recorded that Lee also called for Hill in his final moments ("Tell Hill he must come up."), although current medical opinions believe that Lee was unable to speak during his last illness. |