Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 21.djvu/120

 112 Southern Historical Society Papers.

wife and mother. The widow, without a murmur, committed her only boy to the keeping of the orphan's God, as she proudly imprinted a parting kiss upon his brow, while the woe of the bride was tempered with that admiration which is the tribute of beauty to bravery, as she gave a last embrace to one to whom she had but yesterday plighted her faith. The stately Southern dames and the petted damsels, whose soft hands had seldom plied needle before, found their greatest pleasure then in deftly working upon caps, hav- ersacks and knapsacks, as at a later day in cutting and stitching the coarse clothing intended for our brave boys.

The organized bodies of citizen soldiery from all parts of the State, such as the Rowland Rifles, the Wilmington Light Infantry and the Oak City Guards were sent hastily to the unoccupied forts on our coast. As the other companies thus hurriedly equipped, rushed to the capitol to tender their services, all eyes were turned to an adopted son of the State, whose education at West Point and brilliant career in Mexico, had placed him easily at the head of her citizen sol- diery and Daniel Harvey Hill was called to the command of her first camp of instruction.

BIRTH AND EDUCATION.

He was born in York District in the State of South Carolina on the 2ist of July, 1821. He traced his descent neither from the Cavaliers of England nor from the Huguenots of France, but from the sturdy sons of liberty-loving Scotland, who migrated to the north of Ireland and ultimately planted colonies in Pennsylvania, Virginia, North and South Carolina, where they educated, elevated and dominated the people with whom they came in contact. His paternal grandfather, William Hill, a native of Ireland, had landed in Pennsylvania, and moving South with the stream of Scotch-Irish that populated the valley of Virginia and Western North Carolina, built, with Colonel Hayne as his partner, in 1770, an iron foundry in York District, which within the next decade was the only point south of Virginia where cannons were cast for the use of the colonial armies. He was colonel of a regiment in Sumpter's brigade, and fought gallantly under him in many engagements. While Colonel Hill was confined to his home by a wound received in battle, a de- tachment was sent from the British force at Charleston to destroy his foundry, and he barely escaped with his life by hiding under a large