Part 51

If Pollard's malignant charges, made to detract from the honor and glory of an achievement so brilliantly executed and so fruitful of benefit to the cause, were not shown by the most direct proof from the most honorable men to be false and unfounded, the marked discrepancy between the order published in the _Official Records_, as No. 191, copied from General Lee's book of general orders, and that which McClellan declared in his report to be a _copy_ of the order sent by him to Washington, suggests to a legal mind a solution of the dispute which corroborates in the strongest possible manner the sworn testimony of Major James W. Ratchford, Adjutant-General of Hill's Division, that the custody of such papers was a part of his exclusive duty at that time, and that no such order was delivered to him, with the solemn statement of General Hill that he never saw or read a copy of the order in question, except one purporting to have been sent through General Jackson, to whose corps he was attached when it was issued, and which he still preserved among his private papers in 1886. It will be observed that the first of the two paragraphs, omitted in what purports to be the copy of the order that fell into the possession of the enemy, forbade the troops stationed around Frederick City from entering that town without permission, and the second directed that the sick and disabled of the army should be removed to Winchester. Halleck's correspondence with McClellan on the same day, September 13, 1862 (_Official Records_, Series 1, Vol. XIX, Part 1, p. 41), evinces the greatest apprehension that the movement of the army was aimed at Washington City, and the demonstrations higher up the Potomac were intended to distract attention from the real design. Was it not more important that the chief officer of all the armies should know that Lee's sick and disabled soldiers were to be moved to Winchester, as the general depot of the army, and that all recruits, returning or coming for the first time to the army were to rendezvous at Winchester, than to learn from the last paragraph of the copy sent him that Lee's troops were to habitually carry in their regimental wagons axes to cut wood, etc.? The second paragraph seemed plainly to indicate that Lee's purpose was what he afterwards declared in his report to have been his plan--to establish his base of operations by way of the valley of Virginia and invade or threaten Pennsylvania, not Washington, after taking Harper's Ferry. (_Official Records_, Series 1, Vol. XIX. Part 1, p. 145.) This was McClellan's own idea of Lee's design, and if he could have convinced Halleck of the correctness of his views there would have been no reason for further hesitation about weakening the garrison of the capital city to swell the effective force in the field. McClellan did not get the whole order and omit a portion of it in his correspondence at the time because it tended to sustain his view against Halleck. He did not send his chief the full copy of his order and omit in his report, written after his removal from command, a section which proved that he (not Halleck) had divined Lee's purpose from the beginning. The two paragraphs would not have been omitted in a copy intended for Hill, because it was Hill's troops that at the time were stationed nearest to Frederick City, and were prohibited from entering it. It is evident that General Lee must have sent the whole order to Hill, and it is equally manifest that McClellan had every reason for inserting a full copy in his report if he received it.

The explanation which readily suggests itself, therefore, is that the original draft of the order contained only the portion beginning with the third section and was signed in that shape by Colonel Chilton, but was afterwards modified so as to prefix the two first paragraphs before it was issued. The "lost order" was found by an Indiana soldier, wrapped around three cigars. The first paper drawn would have become useless after the material additions made to it, and might well have been wrapped around cigars by some one at General Lee's headquarters, with the purpose of using it to light them, and then lost before cigars or paper were disposed of, as intended. It will be more readily believed that a clerk or assistant in the office at army headquarters might have been guilty of carelessness than that Ratchford swore to and that Hill told a falsehood. If their positive statements are believed, only the one order, addressed as though sent through General Jackson's headquarters, was received by General Hill. When Lee and Hill were encamped in sight of each other near Fredericktown, and General Lee was then and afterwards (as at South Mountain) habitually sending orders direct to General Hill, it does not seem probable that Lee, whose forte was the power of readily mobilizing his army, would have tolerated such circumlocution as making one courier ride across the Potomac to Jackson with an order which was to be sent back by another messenger to a camp in sight of its starting point on the next day. It would have been a fair compromise between extreme official courtesy and that common sense which always characterized the conduct of our great leaders, if Lee had recognized Jackson's authority by addressing the order as though transmitted through him, and at the same time ordering its delivery directly to Hill, thus conforming his conduct to the conditions which demanded that Hill should know at the earliest possible moment of his proposed plan of operation, and of the prohibition against entering the neighboring town applying only to his own and Longstreet's Division.

The direct testimony bearing upon the dispute in reference to the lost order was the sworn statement of Major James W. Ratchford, Adjutant-General, that only the single copy of the order reached him, which was preserved by General Hill till his death, and the solemn statement of Hill that he himself received no other copy. Leaving out of view the difference between the original paper recorded in Lee's book and the supposed copy delivered to McClellan, there is nothing to contradict the testimony of one of the bravest and truest officers in the army of Virginia and the word of D. H. Hill. The attention of these two officers had been called to the loss of the paper within a few months after it passed into McClellan's hands, when all that had occurred in Maryland was still fresh in their memories, and they then made the same statement that the one reiterates to-day and the other published in 1886. Lee himself charged no particular person with the loss of the dispatch. While he possibly magnified (says Longstreet in his article in the _Century Magazine_) its effect upon the Maryland campaign, he was inclined to attribute its loss to the fault of a courier. (_Battles and Leaders of the Civil War_, Vol. II, p. 674.) In his report of the operations in Maryland he said: "The small command of General Hill repelled repeated assaults of the Federal army and held it in check for five hours." The only contradicting testimony comes from Major Taylor of General Lee's staff, and being negative in its character, is not entitled to the weight that should be attached to the positive evidence of gentlemen of equal reputation for veracity. The substance of his statement is, that it was his habit during that campaign to send such orders directly to the headquarters of Hill's Division as well as through Jackson to Hill. But he neither recalls the fact of sending the particular paper in question, nor does he name any officer or courier who attests its actual delivery. Admitting the high character of Taylor, as well as that of Ratchford, the verdict of history, under the most familiar rules of evidence, must unquestionably acquit Hill of negligence, and accord to him the high honor of saving the army of Lee by his strategy, coolness, and courage.

At Sharpsburg, the last engagement in which D. H. Hill participated with that army, no figure was more conspicuous and no line firmer than his. As usual, he was the first to open and the last to quit the fight. General Lee said in his report: "The attack on our left was speedily followed by one in heavy force on the center. This was met by part of Walker's Division and the brigades of G. B. Anderson and Rodes of D. H. Hill's command, assisted by a few pieces of artillery. The enemy were repulsed and retired behind the crest of a hill, from which they kept up a desultory fire. At this time, by a mistake of orders, General Rodes' Brigade was withdrawn from its position during the temporary absence of that officer at another part of the field. The enemy immediately passed through the gap thus created and G. B. Anderson's Brigade was broken and retired, General Anderson himself being mortally wounded.... The heavy masses of the enemy again moved forward, being opposed by only four pieces of artillery, supported by a few hundred men belonging to different brigades, rallied by General D. H. Hill and other officers, and parts of Walker's and R. H. Anderson's commands, Colonel Cooke of the Twenty-seventh North Carolina Regiment, of Walker's Brigade, standing boldly in line without a cartridge." "At this critical moment, when the enemy was advancing on Cooke," says General Longstreet, "a shot came across the Federal front, plowing the ground in a parallel line, then another and another, each nearer and nearer their line. This enfilade fire was from a battery on D. H. Hill's line, and it soon beat back the attacking column." (_Battles and Leaders of the Civil War_, Vol. II, p. 670.)

On the right General Lee was stationed in person, and with Toombs' Brigade (says General Longstreet) held the enemy in check till A. P. Hill's Division rushed to the rescue, with Pender on the right and Branch on the left of his line, and aided by well-directed shots from a battery planted by D. H. Hill on his front, drove them back in confusion. Generals Lee, Longstreet, and D. H. Hill concluded during a short suspension of musketry fire to reconnoiter the position of the enemy from the crest of a ridge in front of the Confederate line, which was formed behind a fence. Lee and Longstreet giving General Hill a sufficiently wide berth, went out on foot, while Hill rode. In a few moments, says Longstreet, Hill was making vain and rather ludicrous efforts to dismount from the third horse killed under him in that engagement, the legs of the animal having been cut off at the knees by a cannon ball. When Major Ratchford, who himself was never known to quail in the face of the foe, but whose affection for his friend was unbounded, said to him on this occasion: "General, why do you expose yourself so recklessly? Do you never feel the sensation of fear?" General Hill replied that he would never require his men to go where he did not know the ground or would not go himself, and that he had no fear of death if he met it in the line of duty. His friend then inquired if he would not rather live than die. "Oh, yes," said General Hill, "when I think of my wife and babies I would; but God will take care of them if he allows anything to happen to me."

When, in November, 1862, Hill's Division was ordered to take the lead in the march to Fredericksburg to meet Hooker, a large number of his men had been barefooted since the return of the army from Maryland, yet he accomplished the unusual feat of marching two hundred miles in twenty days without leaving on the way a single straggler. One of the remarkable features of the battle of December 13th, 1862, near Fredericksburg, which followed this sudden transfer of the seat of war, was the fact that D. H. Hill's Division, Jubal A. Early's and most of John B. Hood's were in the reserve line. It was evidence of an easy victory that the services of three such fighting men were not needed in front.

In February, 1863, Hill bade a final adieu to his old division, when he was ordered to assume command in the State of North Carolina. Before the campaign opened in the following spring Hill had made a demonstration against New Bern, followed by an advance upon Washington in this State, which would have resulted in the capture of the latter place but for Lee's order to send a portion of his command to Virginia.

Later in the spring of 1863, Hill was ordered to remove his headquarters to Petersburg, and was placed in command of the department extending from the James to the Cape Fear. When Lee invaded Pennsylvania the citizens of Richmond and the heads of the various departments became greatly alarmed for the safety of the place. The officers in charge of the defenses of the city and of the Peninsula 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 south of the James and assume command of the forces gathered for the defense 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 Bottom's Bridge, drove them back without serious difficulty in the direction of West Point, and in two or three days restored perfect confidence on the part of the panic-stricken people of the city.

About the 10th 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 13th of July General Hill, with his staff, set out immediately for his new field. When he reached his home in Charlotte 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 Chickamauga, says: "The corps of Hardee had lately gained as a commander 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 classmate, A. P. Stewart, and of the plucky Pat. Cleburne, who seemed from the first to feel that he had found a soldier-affinity in the congenial spirit of Hill. When at last the scattered hosts had concentrated and confronted each other on the Chickamauga, it was not till after the night of the first day that Bragg made public his purpose to give the entire management of the right wing to Polk and the control of the left to Longstreet. If the enemy's left, under the stalwart Thomas, could be driven from the Lafayette road the communication with Chattanooga would be cut off and the retreat and ruin of the enemy inevitable. To accomplish this end Bragg seemed more intent on hurried than concentrated effort. That grand man, officer and statesman, John C. Breckinridge, at his own request was allowed to take the extreme right, flanked by Forrest and supported in this forward movement by Cleburne on the left. Stewart having been transferred to Buckner, these two divisions constituted Hill's Corps. In rear of the line from which Breckinridge and Cleburne moved to the attack at nine in the morning, on the last decisive day, was the corps of the old veteran known as "Fighting Bill" Walker, and as eager for the fray as a school-boy for frolic. His command was composed of his own and Liddell's Divisions, embracing six brigades, led by such dashing soldiers as Ector, Gist, and Walthall. But the first lesson learned by a staff officer, who went from the East to the West, was that even an old war-horse like Walker dared not to fire a gun or move an inch, acting upon his own best judgment, without an order brought with due formality through all of the regular channels. The Virginia Brigadier struck his blows where opportunity offered and reported to his superior that he was striking. The Western Brigadier lost his opportunity to strike waiting for permission to do so. Still behind Walker stood Frank Cheatham, with his splendid division, like their leader, chafing under restraint.

Such were the dispositions in Hill's rear when the impetuous charge of Breckinridge's two right brigades broke the left of Thomas and crossed the fateful road. With two thousand infantry and a battery of artillery, Breckinridge swung his line around at a right angle to that of the enemy and started to sweep down upon their flank; but the left of Breckinridge had encountered an earthwork, as had Cleburne's whole line, and their western foe standing firm, one or two brigades gave way. Another advancing line to fill the gap, and the day would be won before noon, and the enemy driven across the Tennessee or captured before night. In vain might Hill plead or Walker swear, when no orders came and no chief could be found to give them. Chafed and disappointed, the grand Kentuckian found himself for want of support at last exposed to destruction or capture, and slowly and stubbornly both he and Cleburne fell back and reformed, but much nearer to the enemy than the line from which they advanced. Scarcely had the decimated forces of Hill reformed when, all too late, Walker went forward with another single line, to be hurled back by the fresh troops that the enemy was rapidly massing on his left to meet the design now developed by our ill-managed movement. Cheatham, meanwhile, was not allowed to budge an inch or fire a gun. Thus was the plan frustrated and the attacking force driven back and cut to pieces in detail for want of a present, active, moving head to strike with the two arms of the right wing at one time. The fierce onslaught of Hill failed, as did the no less impetuous charge of Walker, because as a chain is no stronger than its most defective link, so a single advancing line is no stouter than its weakest point.

The splendid conduct of our troops on our right and the dread inspired by Breckinridge's bold charge of the morning bore fruit, however, in a way entirely unexpected, when it led the enemy to mass so much of his force behind Thomas. This was the occupation of the enemy while Hill and Forrest were riding up and down in front of our line and drawing the fire of the enemy upon the young troop who followed at their heels, and when there was a temporary lull in front of Longstreet on the left and left center.

At last the thunder of artillery and the roar of musketry again burst upon us from along the whole front of the Virginia lieutenant, while Hill in vain sent messenger after messenger to beg that these lines be formed and a general advance ordered on the right as well as on the left. Just before night General Polk permitted Hill to take charge of the forward movement of the three lines, Walker in front, his own corps composing the second and Cheatham the third. The advance of our attacking column on the left, before that time steady, now became impetuous, and with a momentary wavering of a brigade on the right, we rushed over the breastworks of Thomas and caught 5,000 prisoners in the angle, where Longstreet and Hill met, as they had on many hard-fought fields before, to discuss the events of that day and prepare, as they had hoped, for a still more eventful one that was to follow. But a short time had elapsed when they were joined by Forrest, impatient for orders to pursue the flying foe. When some hours had been passed in the vain effort to learn where the headquarters of the commanding general were located, Longstreet and Hill agreed to divide the responsibility of ordering the immediate pursuit by Forrest, with an assurance that they would ask the privilege of pushing forward to his support at early dawn.

Unable by the most diligent inquiry to open communication with Bragg till the next afternoon, they failed to secure for Forrest the infantry support that would have swept the single division of Thomas out of the gap on Missionary Ridge, or flanked and captured it, without another obstruction in the road to Chattanooga and on to Nashville. Such might have been the fruits of our victory, which being lost by delay, the last hope of the tottering Confederacy to regain the prestige and restore the confidence lost at Gettysburg and Vicksburg was gone forever.

Scattered along the face of Missionary Ridge, waiting for the enemy to make Chattanooga impregnable, and then uniting the forces of Grant and Sherman with the reorganized army of Thomas to overwhelm them, were the disheartened Confederates, daily growing weaker from the desertion of men whose homes were exposed to devastation by the Federals.

It was at this juncture that Buckner drew up and Polk, Longstreet, Hill, Buckner, Cleburne, Cheatham, Brown, and other generals signed and sent to the president a petition stating that the commanding general had lost the confidence of the army, and asking that he be transferred to another command and replaced by a more acceptable leader. Hill was the last of the lieutenant-generals consulted, but, unfortunately for his future, his headquarters were located at a central point on the line and the paper was left there to be signed. Cheatham and Cleburne met at that point and put their names to the paper at the same time. After the battle at Murfreesboro, Bragg had addressed letters to the chiefs of divisions in his army, asking whether he retained the confidence of the troops, and intimating a willingness to resign if he had lost it. Breckinridge, Cleburne, and one or two others promptly answered that they thought he could no longer be useful in the position he occupied. The correspondence led to an open breach between Bragg and Breckinridge, and a newspaper controversy, in which each charged upon the other the responsibility of our failure at Murfreesboro. General Breckinridge, in a conversation with me, stated that his reason for declining to sign the paper was that his opinion of the commanding general was known, and, as their relations were already unfriendly, his motives might be misconstrued.

No better illustration of the prevailing opinion among the higher officers, as well as the rank and file of the army, in reference to the efficiency of the commanding general can be given than the substance of a conversation between Cheatham and Cleburne, as they joined in a social glass after signing the petition: "Here are my congratulations upon your recovery from your bad cold," said Cleburne. "I have had no bad cold," said Cheatham. "Let me tell you an old fable," replied Cleburne. "The report had been circulated among the beasts of the forest that the lion had a bad breath; whereupon, as king, the lion summoned all to appear, and admitted them to his presence one by one. As each would answer, upon smelling his breath, that it was bad, the lion would devour him. When at length the fox was brought in, he replied to the question that he had a bad cold, and escaped. You had a bad cold when you wrote Bragg after the battle of Murfreesboro that you didn't know whether he still retained the confidence of the army. You have at last recovered."