General A.P. Hill, Good commander or bad commander

[Joshua l.Chamberlain]

Dud you know both Jackson and Lee called out for hill when they were on there death bed.

[Ephrum]

Joshua l.Chamberlain wrote:

Dud you know both Jackson and Lee called out for hill when they were on there death bed.

What better endorsement could you ask for?

"...A.P. Hill to the front!"

[Hancock the Superb]

I believe that during G-burg, Hill was new to command, so his effectiveness was nil. However, at the Wilderness, he was amazing, always knowing where to stick men. However, his negligence after his gains ended up almost destroying the ANV. I believe that Gordon would have been a great Corps commander after G-burg, or Mahone (even though he was worse than AP Hill dealing with superiors. Some more good corps commanders would be Pender (the original contestent for the command of the III Corps until Jeff Davis put up AP Hill, Anderson (who later commanded the I Corps) and Early, who also later commanded the II Corps.

[dale]

Mahone, when given command of a larger body of troops in late 1864 proved to be Lee's favorite officer for attacking. Ironically (for your moniker) it was Mahone's attack at Globe Tavern that sent Hancock's Second Corps off of the battlefield in panic.

[Joshua l.Chamberlain]

dale wrote:

Mahone, when given command of a larger body of troops in late 1864 proved to be Lee's favorite officer for attacking. Ironically (for your moniker) it was Mahone's attack at Globe Tavern that sent Hancock's Second Corps off of the battlefield in panic.

d
Read about that I think Hancock was actually shocked by that since he had never seen the II Corps has never ran like that.

[Hancock the Superb]

However, Hancock only had 7,000 men, who had been used up marching from one side of the field (the James River operations) to the other, at Globe Tavern. In addition, most of his troops were new recruits, since the 2-3 year veterans were being mustered out.

Mahone and AP Hill had 11,000.

[Flanyboy]

Hancock and Longstreet are my two favorite commanders... B)

[dale]

True. The glory days of the second corps were behind them. A lot of the regiments were used up by the 1864 campaign. I think that there was another Union corps (5th?) on the field that day so that the second did not take the entire frontage. I think the total Union troops were much higher than the 7000. In addition, Mahone was attacking a position that had been fortified somewhat with felled trees facing outwards and some earthworks.

[Hancock the Superb]

The fifth corps was somewhere in the rear of the 2nd. However, the entrenchments built by the fifth were poorly made, just for when they were occupying the position. The 2nd Corps arrived, took over the fortifications, and they proved to be terrible. Some parts of the line was subject to front, flank, and REAR fire!

[Kerflumoxed]

How about a comparative evaluation of A.P.Hill's abilities to an officer senior to Ambrose Powell Hill and bypassed by Lee, from James Longstreet:

"General D. H. Hill was the superior of General A. P. Hill in rank, skill, judgement, and distinguished services. He had served with the army in Virginia, on the Peninsula in the battles of Williamsburg, Seven Pinte, and the Seven Days battles around Richmond. In the Maryland campaign he made the battle of South Mountain alone from morning till late in the afternoon, with five thousand against a large part of McClellan's army. He also bore the brunt of the battle of Sharpsburg. He came,however, not from Virginia but from North Carolina, and had just been detailed for service in that state." (Battles and Leaders: Volume II, p. 245) Longstreet also went on to laud the efforts of Lafayetter McLaws who was also senior in rank to A. P. Hill but was in precarious health at the time of the Gettysburg campaign.

During, or prior to, the Fredricksburg campaign D. H. Hill had developed a verbal conflict with Lee's leadership and subsequently left the ANV to recruit his home state of South Carolina. Hill is credited with holding the Confederate center, the “Bloody Lane,” at Antietam against repeated Federal assaults. However, Hill was blamed by some contemporaries for the loss of a copy of Lee’s “Special Order 191,” which, when discovered by Union pickets on September 13, revealed Lee’s plans to Union commander George McClellan. The lost order had been hand-coped by Jackson’s adjutant, Robert Chilton, and sent to Hill, who insisted he never saw that copy, having received the same written order directly from Lee.

On the other hand, "Hill was an outspoken critic of Confederate general Robert E. Lee and Braxton Bragg, which eventually resulted in his expulsion from the Army of Northern Virginia. Nonetheless, Hill had an excellent reputation on the battlefield. James Wylie Ratchford, a South Carolinian on Hill’s staff, wrote that Stonewall Jackson, 'repeatedly declared in my hearing that there was not. . . another man in the Southern army superior in his military genius than D.H. Hill.'" (http://www.northcarolinahistory.org/enc ... /306/entry)

So, the question remains: Would D. H. Hill have been a better choice for Lee or was the open criticism too much for even Bobby Lee to overlook? Based upon the complete wartime records of both Hill's, including A. P.'s erratic behavior and D. H.'s outspokenness, coupled with Longstreet's appraisal, it would appear that Marse Robert may have made the wrong decision. :woohoo: