Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 21.djvu/130

 122 Southern Historical Society Papers.

of the wa^ when he resigned and spent his last days in command of the army of the Khedive of Egypt,

On the night of the battle of Games' Mill, Major Clitz and General Reynolds, old army comrades of General Hill, were brought as prisoners to his quarters. He received both very kindly and sent for a surgeon to dress Major Clitz's wound, while he comforted Rey- nolds, who was mortified at being caught asleep, by reminding him that his gallant conduct in Mexico and on the border would protect his good name from a shade of suspicion. Both were placed in an ambulance, paroled to report to General Winder at Richmond, and furnished with the address of a friend of General Hill's who would honor their drafts for money. These incidents are reproduced because they bring to view traits of General Hill's character of which the world generally knows so little, his warm sympathy for suffering and his lasting and unswerving fidelity to his friends.

WILLIAMSBURG.

From the moment when Johnson placed Hill, then a Major-Gen- eral, at the head of a division in March, 1862, till the last shock of arms at Bentonsville, Hill's position on every march and in every battle, with scarcely a single exception, was the post of danger and honor. His was the first division of Johnston's army to enter York- town and the last to leave it and pass with his command through the reserve line. When the vanguard of the enemy, led by Hancock, rushed upon our rear at Williamsburg, it was Basil C. Manly, of Ramseur's Battery, who, seeing that a section of the enemy's light artillery might beat him in the race to occupy an earthwork midway between the two, unlimbered on the way and by a well directed shot disabled the enemy in transitu, and quick as thought limbered up again, and ran into the fortifications. It was the regiment of Duncan K. McRae, of D. H. Hill's division, that extorted from the generous and gallant Hancock that memorable declaration, ' ' The Fifth North Carolina and Twenty-fourth Virginia deserve to have the word immortal inscribed on their banners." It was this charge which Early describes as " an attack upon the vastly superior forces of the enemy, which, for its gallantry, is unsurpassed in the annals of warfare. ' '

SEVEN PINES.

When McClellan moved his army over Bottom's bridge, threw a