Review - "Confederate General D. H. Hill: A Military Life" by Chris Hartley

[Confederate General D.H. Hill: A Military Life by Chris J. Hartley (Savas Beatie, 2026). Hardcover, 20 maps, photos, footnotes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:xx,500/556. ISBN:978-1-61121-759-9. $39.95]

For a very well-known Civil War officer of his rank and breadth of service encompassing key campaigns fought in both the eastern and western theaters, Confederate general Daniel Harvey Hill has been curiously neglected in the biographical literature. The best-known published work, Hal Bridges's Centennial-era Lee's Maverick General (its 1991 reprint a staple of 1990s and early 2000s brick and mortar bookstore shelves), is less of a biography and more a focused military study of Hill's controversial Civil War career. Exhibiting deep research in primary sources (including manuscript holdings from depositories located all across the country), fully comprehensive coverage of its subject, and insightful critical analysis, Chris Hartley's Confederate General D.H. Hill: A Military Life is clearly the class of the slim pickings that have followed in Bridges's footsteps. Its publication fills a major gap in Civil War biography.

With Hill being most closely associated with the state of North Carolina, it is easy to forget that he was actually a native South Carolinian. Though it provides a cradle to grave account of Hill's life, Hartley's biography is structured most like the traditional Civil War military biography. Six chapters (together approaching nearly one-hundred pages) address Hill's early life, religious upbringing and practices, West Point and Mexican War experiences (the latter supplementing the excellent recent publication of Hill's Mexican War diary edited by historians Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes and Timothy Johnson), and his successful antebellum career in education and college administration. The book's final chapter summarizes Hill's postwar private life and public activities. In between those sections, and comprising the bulk of the volume, is a comprehensive and highly detailed description and analysis of Hill's eventful Civil War career.

Hill started the war at the head of the First North Carolina infantry regiment, and his defensive victory on June 10, 1861 at Big Bethel made him one of the Confederacy's first war heroes. Though his performance on the lower Peninsula at Williamsburg in 1862 was suspect, Hartley argues that Hill was the only Confederate division commander who truly distinguished himself at Seven Pines (though the bar was set pretty low during that battle!). While imperfect and laboring under difficult conditions, Hill's troop management skills there marked him as a leader perhaps destined for higher command responsibilities, though he still needed to earn the approval of new Army of Northern Virginia commander Robert E. Lee.

In the author's opinion, Hill was one of the brighter stars of the Gaines's Mill bloodbath that turned the tide during the Seven Days, and he advanced aggressively at Malvern Hill (his division suffering the highest casualties in Lee's army) even though he opposed the assault. Lee subsequently tabbed Hill with interdicting the now cowering Army of the Potomac's James River supply line, but Lee was disappointed in the results. In Hartley's view, that was unfair given Union naval strength on the river and the limited resources placed at Hill's disposal. The author could find no concrete evidence explaining why Hill was given the responsibility for negotiating a POW exchange system with the U.S. (the result being the so-called Dix-Hill Cartel), but he does note that Lee was among those not satisfied with the final agreement. Hill was then sent to head the Department of North Carolina, where his defensive arrangements there met with general approval.

Circumstances and blame surrounding the loss of Special Orders No. 191 during the 1862 Maryland Campaign (and the intelligence coup it provided to approaching Union forces) have been debated at length in the literature (most recently by Alexander Rossino). Hartley sits firmly among those, including Rossino, who hold Hill personally blameless in the matter, the general's headquarters having never received the original copy of the order that was later found by Union soldiers wrapped around cigars. Nevertheless, claims by critics that he lost the order would dog Hill for the rest of his life. Hill's dispositions at South Mountain have also come under criticism then and now, but Hartley persuasively contends that Hill did reasonably well given the large area he was assigned to defend with the limited forces at hand and how badly he was let down by cavalry reconnaissance tasked with tracking McClellan's surprisingly rapid progress from the east. In defending his assigned sector of the Antietam battlefield, what would become known as the Bloody Lane, Hill was once again active everywhere along his line. Even after overwhelming Union pressure and a tragic misunderstanding on the flank led to the rout of Hill's command, the general personally organized ad-hoc groups of men and guns that restored enough of a battle line at the rear to prevent the complete collapse of the Confederate center.

His division's manpower and officer corps talent gutted during the Maryland Campaign, Hill was fortunate to get a bit of a break during the Battle of Fredericksburg, where his position as Stonewall Jackson's reserve division resulted in few casualties. Nevertheless, Hill's health problems (including a spine condition of unknown origin) progressed to such an extent that he was determined to resign from the army. He also was frustrated by what he deemed constant mistreatment from the army and the government (as he did throughout his Civil War career, he had taken up feuding with Richmond during this time).

As the author notes on more than one occasion in the book, Hill was never really a great admirer of Robert E. Lee, remaining a Joe Johnston man through to the end. For his part, Lee had misgivings about Hill but still valued his services. Citing Lee's efforts to keep the dispirited Hill with the Army of Northern Virginia, Hartley adamantly opposes those writers and historians who continue to assert that Lee, tired of his talented but troublesome subordinate, got rid of Hill. He also completely discounts alleged friction with brother-in-law Stonewall Jackson having anything to do with Hill's determination to leave the service.

Eventually, Hill was convinced to remain in uniform, and he was sent to North Carolina, an agreeable posting, to command troops in that state. There, Hill had enough manpower to threaten Union coastal enclaves but didn't possess the artillery weight and strength to overcome the heavily fortified defenders, who were also backed by dominating naval firepower. True to his carping nature, Hill also involved himself in unseemly bickering with Lee over troop transfers to Virginia, made worse by his departmental intelligence failures that misinterpreted enemy strength. As Lee's army prepared for its move north, Hill's departmental responsibilities were expanded, and the highlight from the period was his halting of a Union offensive up the Virginia Peninsula that coincided with the Gettysburg Campaign. That particular operation was buried in obscurity until the recent publication of Hampton Newsome's exhaustive study. Both Newsome and Hartley credit Hill with a strong performance.

Soon after, Hill was finally promoted to lieutenant general and was sent out West to replace William J. Hardee as a corps commander in Braxton Bragg's star-crossed Army of Tennessee, which had fallen back from Middle Tennessee to Chattanooga. Before the war, Hill and Bragg maintained a cordial relationship, but renewal of their acquaintance got off to a bad start. Moody and distressed after a long retreat and cognizant of how much opposition there was to his leadership, Bragg was not receptive to Hill's advice, while Hill also fell under the influence of the anti-Bragg clique within the army. Accelerating the crumbling of their relationship and mutual respect was the McLemore's Cove debacle (even though Thomas Hindman was the general principally blamed by Bragg for the missed opportunity there). Hill was accused of not following Bragg's orders even though they were discretionary and impractical. Hartley does not sugarcoat Hill's role at Chickamauga, deeming September 20, 1863 his worst day as a Civil War general. While not finding Hill as culpable as Bragg and wing commander Leonidas Polk when it came to the horrific high command miscommunication that negatively shaped the expected attack on the 20th, Hartley does argue that Hill did little in his power to improve the situation on his own end. Hill's midnight ride that resulted in his getting lost and absent from his headquarters was ill-advised and ill-timed (to say the least). Denied the opportunity and permission to deploy his corps as he wished, Hill, instead of focusing on developing the best plan that could be made under the circumstances and inspiring his subordinates, instead sulked and bickered with his fellow officers. The fighting on the Confederate right was heavily delayed, poorly planned, and badly coordinated, resulting in a great many unnecessary casualties and a lesser overall Confederate battlefield victory than perhaps could and should have been achieved. Though not chiefly responsible, Hill undeniably played a part in that.

In the Army of Tennessee high command imbroglio that erupted in the aftermath of the "barren" Confederate victory at Chickamauga, President Davis sustained Bragg, an act that necessitated a shake-up among the army's highest-ranking subordinate officers. Somewhat predictably, Bragg's vengeful axe fell on Hill's neck. Objectively speaking, no one can argue today that Hill was the ringleader of the anti-Bragg cabal, and the book convincingly shows that Bragg's claims that Hill failed to follow orders and was the main driving force behind the delayed attack on the 20th lack merit. Nevertheless, as Hartley suggests, the natural consequence of his well-earned reputation as a disruptive force within the army—combined with a lack of political allies powerful enough to protect him—made Hill highly vulnerable and an easy target for selection as the odd man out. During his brief stint with the Army of Tennessee, Hill was in many ways his own worst enemy, but he also was a victim of that army's seemingly irredeemable high command dysfunction.

Another victim of Hill's dismissal was confirmation of his promotion to lieutenant general, which ended up being permanently shelved. Contrary to his claims that he was willing to serve in whatever capacity was required, the reversion to his previous rank of major general rankled Hill to no end along with the Davis administration's refusal to issue an official document of support. Nevertheless, Hill still had friends within the army, and P.G.T. Beauregard utilized his services as a kind of eastern theater mobile fixer. Hartley documents several occasions where Hill provided important behind the scenes service (ex. in arranging the defenses of Lynchburg, Virginia before the city was attacked in 1864). By the spring of 1865, Hill's Civil War career had come full circle, and he ended the war leading major parts of the skeletal remains of Confederate forces in North Carolina at Wise's Forks and Bentonville.

After the war ended, Hill quickly requested a pardon and sought to reestablish a productive civilian life, his overall attitude a mixture of unreconstructed and reconciliationist. He did a lot of writing and launched a respected magazine. He also returned to the education field, serving as president of colleges in Arkansas and Georgia. His Battles and Leaders articles were his most prominent contributions to revisiting and refighting his Civil War career on the published page.

Hartley's study offers readers a well-balanced assessment of D.H. Hill's skills and weaknesses as a military commander, and the author's treatment of the major controversies surrounding Hill's Civil War service is evenhanded and convincing. As far as Hill's better qualities as battlefield commander, Hartley rates Hill a bold and aggressive fighter. He awards the general high marks for prioritizing reconnaissance (which was often conducted personally) and for being highly active and always visible to his men. Critiques include a tendency to feed his units into battle piecemeal (a common enough complaint about Civil War generals, the vast majority of whom were novices when it came to handling large numbers of men). Hill's legendarily abrasive and constantly complaining personality also rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, creating enemies among important people. Though he could be effusive in his praise, Hill often used insultingly charged language in his frequent accusations leveled against fellow officers and units he felt underperformed in his presence.

Hill freely aired criticisms of army and civilian leadership as early in his military career as 1846, and most historians see that trait as one highly damaging to his career and professional relationships. Hartley accepts that, but he also sees Hill's critical broadsides as having an activist aspect to them, in drawing influence and attention toward what Hill saw as positive changes in how he and his men were supported or in being a source of inspiration against a hated and dangerous foe. There very well might be an element of truth in that, but, for Hill's communications to be truly effective one might argue that more measured language has to be employed or those who disagree with you with only retrench in their opposition and those you seek to inspire will dismiss you as a blowhard. Citing Hill's success as a college-level leader and administrator, Hartley contests Lee's assertion that Hill lacked necessary administrative skills needed by those occupying high command positions. That is persuasive on some level, but one might also argue that there's a strong apples and oranges component in weighing educational institution and military logistics/command management skills against each other.

In the end, after reading Chris Hartley's magnificent biography, long-time Civil War reader impressions of D.H. Hill remain little altered (maybe not in many of the details, but in the big picture sense). Off the battlefield, Hill was a devoted family man, devout Presbyterian, sectional partisan, successful writer, and significant figure in nineteenth-century higher education. On the battlefield, he was a conscientious, aggressive, and talented general. Not serving his military relationships and career well were his caustically unfiltered criticisms of superiors, rank equals, and subordinates alike, all delivered with biting sarcasm. Puzzlement and mystery will always accompany honest attempts at interpreting a unique and difficult historical personality like D.H. Hill's, but Chris Hartley's Confederate General D. H. Hill: A Military Life more than any other source fleshes out Hill's private and public lives in full, presenting him as a multi-dimensional figure and, in the end, less of an enigma. Highly recommended.