Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 17.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

A picture of A. P. Hill.

In the midst of the renewed uproar General Hill came down the line. He stood bolt upright between the contending fires, looked around awhile, then went off to the left, returned, looked once more intently into the timber as if to say this nest must be cleaned out, and finally went off up the line. Years afterwards I stood by the grave of this valiant soldier in the cemetery at Richmond. Naught marked the spot but a slab with ‘A. P. Hill,’ and nothing but the twitter of little birds broke the solemn stillness; but as I stood there I saw him as he stood that day—erect, magnificent, the god of war himself, amid the smoke and the thunder.

The order came to charge. Of how we got up and went into and through that felled timber no man can tell. It was confusion worse confounded; now leaping from one tree trunk to another; now running along this, and then crawling under the other. But if it was hard for us to get in it was equally hard for the enemy to get out. Some rough work was done in there. The edge of the timber looked as if a cyclone had struck it. In every angle bodies were huddled. In the smoke and confusion I lost the regiment, and kept on ahead instead of right-obliquing. A terrific roar and jar and a hot breath as of a furnace warned me of the uncomfortable proximity of a cannon. It was an enfilading battery which our colonel had avoided by a right oblique.