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Ambrose Powell Hill (9 November 1825 – 2 April 1865) was a Lieutenant-General of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Hill was a distinguished Confederate general during the war, and he was killed during the Siege of Petersburg in 1865; both Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson would mention Hill in their dying words.

Biography[]

Ambrose Powell Hill was born in Culpeper, Virginia on 9 November 1825, and he entered West Point in 1842, paid for by his wealthy family. Hill befriended classmates George E. Pickett, Cadmus M. Wilcox, and George B. McClellan, and he did not get along well with Thomas J. Jackson, his future commander. Hill was forced to repeat his third year due to becoming ill from gonorrhea, and he did not see any action when he was sent to fight in the Mexican-American War with the US Army cavalry. From 1855 to 1860, he worked as a coastal surveyor, but he became a colonel in a Virginia regiment of the Confederate States Army at the start of the American Civil War.

American Civil War[]

A.P

Hill in 1863

In February 1862, he became a Brigadier-General, and he served in the Army of Northern Virginia under generals Joseph E. Johnston and Robert E. Lee during the fighting against the Union in northern Virginia from 1862 to 1865. Hill succeeded Stonewall Jackson as a Lieutenant-General in the army in 1863 after he was killed at the Battle of Chancellorsville, and Hill became a divisional commander under Lee, first fighting at the Battle of Gettysburg in July, during which he believed that there was no alternative to Robert E. Lee's plan to fight against the Union army rather than withdraw. During the Overland Campaign, Hill was constantly rebuked by Lee for his tactical errors, and Hill said that he did not desire to live to see the end of the Confederacy, words that would prove to be prophetic. On 2 April 1865, Hill was shot and killed by a Union soldier as he rode to inspect his lines during the Siege of Petersburg.


Gallery[]

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