Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 19.djvu/189

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Lieutenant- General A. P. Hill. 183

when I saw his dead body brought from the field in the ambulance, I know that no one except his nearest of kin could have felt a sharper pang of grief than I did, and none had warmer tears course down their cheeks than myself.

General Hill was firm, without austerity; genial, without familiarity, and brave, without ostentation. The gentleman and soldier were so completely blended in him that he never had to deviate from one to act the other. He was both all the time. D. F. C.

FIRST BURIAL OF GENERAL HILL'S REMAINS.

The following communication was elicited by the account in the Dispatch of July 2, 1891, of the removal the preceding day of the remains of Lieutenant- General A. P. Hill from Hollywood to the receptacle that had been prepared for them in the foundation of the Hill monument on the Hermitage road. Mention is there made of the first interment of the General's body, which is very far from being correct. The temporary burial of the body in Chesterfield, where it remained several years, was an act of necessity and not of choice or pre-arrangement. As the only surviving relative who par- ticipated in the sad rites of burial of our distinguished dead, I feel that it is my privilege as well as duty to make the correction and ex- plain why his grave has remained so long unmarked by tombstone or shaft, and why he was not buried in his native county (Culpeper). General Hill was killed near Petersburg April 2, 1865, and the next day (that memorable Sunday that ended the existence of the capital of the Confederacy) a messenger reached my home in Richmond bearing to me the first sad news of the General's death, and that his body was then en route to the city (by ambulance), with the request that I would take charge of and if possible bury it in Hollywood. The bearer of that message was Henry Hill, Jr., a nephew of the General, and son of Colonel Henry Hill, Paymaster-General of Vir- ginia, who was formerly a paymaster in the United States army. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when Henry Hill, Jr., reached my house. He had left the body of the General in care of the am- bulance driver about half way between Petersburg and Richmond in order to apprise me, so that the necessary preparations for burial might be made with as little delay as possible. He said to me that it was the wish of the General's wife and brothers that if the body