Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 21.djvu/125

 /,//; and Character <>j Lt.-(lcinr<il I). 11. If;/!. 117

volunteers, that ultimately placed them at the head of companies, regiments, brigades and divisions. Among its originial officers were Major-General Hoke, Brigadier-Generals Lane and Lewis, Colonels Avery, Bridgers, Hardy, W. W. McDowell, J. C. S. McDowell, Starr, Pemberton, Fuller, and a score of others, while a number from the rank and file fell at the head of both companies and regiments at later stages o/ the struggle.

In the outset of this discussion of the career of D. H. Hill as a Confederate soldier, I lay down and propose to maintain the proposi- tion that from the time when he fought the first fight of the war with North Carolina soldiers on Virginia soil till the day he led the last attacking column of Confederates east of the Mississippi and checked Sherman's advance at Bentonsville, whatever may have been the gene- ral result of any engagement, the command of General D. H. Hill was never found when the firing ceased at. night in the rear of the position it occupied when the signal of attack sounded in the morn- ing. Apparently reckless in the exposure of his own person, no officer in our armies was more anxious about the health, happiness and safety of his soldiers. His theory was that spades were instru- ments of defensive, bayonets of offensive warfare, and whether the emergency demanded the use of the one or the other, it was to be done with "might and main." When his cadets had asked him whether they should join South Carolina regiments before their own State seceded, he had prophesied that the war would soon begin and would continue long enough to give every Southerner an opportunity to display his manhood. He rested his hope of success upon the belief that every son of the South would rush to the rescue; that our armies would be supplied by the labor of our slaves, and that we would thus be enabled to throw a force into the field sufficient to meet every Northern man who would tender his services to the Federal Government. Two important elements were wanting as a basis of his calculations the Southern loyalist and the foreign substitute. When, therefore, General D. H. Hill reported to Colonel J. B. Mc- Gruder, then in charge of the Peninsula, and was assigned to the command of the defences of Yorktown, he realized, in a measure at least, the magnitude of the coming contest.

It has been said that a man who is himself born to command is quick to perceive in others the qualities that fit them for leadership. Colonel Hill seemed almost intuitively to descry in the ranks the