Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 21.djvu/148

 140 Southern Historical Society Papers.

departments became greatly alarmed for the safety of the place. The officers in charge of the defences of the city and of the Penin- sula had failed to inspire confidence in their vigilance, efficiency or capacity. When the troops of Dix began to move up the Peninsula from Yorktown and West Point, General Hill was ordered by the President to transfer all available troops from the south of the James and assume command of the forces gathered for the defence of the capital city. With the brigades of Cooke and M. W. Ransom, and a few other regiments, General Hill met the army of Dix near Bot- tom's Bridge, drove them back without serious difficulty in the direc- tion of West Point, and in two or three days restored perfect confi- dence on the part of the panic-stricken people of the city.

JOINS THE WESTERN ARMY CHICKAMAUGA.

About the loth of July, 1863, President Davis called at General Hill's quarters three miles east of Richmond, and after many kind and complimentary comments upon his conduct as an officer during the preceding year, informed him that he was appointed a Lieutenant- General, and would be ordered to report forthwith to General Joseph E. Johnston, near Vicksburg, Mississippi. Orders having been issued accordingly, on the i3th of July General Hill with his staff set out immediately for his new field. When he reached his home in Char- lotte he was notified that his destination had been changed, and he would report for duty to General Braxton Bragg at Chattanooga.

Lieutenant-General D. H. Hill found the army of Bragg encamped along the Tennessee river in and around the small town which has since assumed the proportions of a city. Colonel Archer Anderson, chief of Hill's staff, in his able address upon the battle of Chicka- mauga, says: "The corps of Hardee had lately gained as a com- mander a stern and dauntless soldier from the Army of Northern Virginia in D. H. Hill, whose vigor, coolness and unconquerable pertinacity in fight had already stamped him as a leader of heroic temper. Of the religious school of Stonewall Jackson, his earnest convictions never chilled his ardor for battle, and, in another age, he would have been worthy to charge with Cromwell at Dunbar with the cry, ' Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered.' '

Hill received from Bragg the warm welcome of a comrade who had seen his metal tried on the hard-fought fields of Mexico. Not less cordial was the greeting of his old class-mate, A. P. Stewart, and