Further Details of the Death of General A. P. Hill. 185
how many had been shaved Saturday, and then I moved out, receiving as I went cheers or yells from the enemy, for which compliments I did not stop to thank them. When I got down in the bottom I stopped my mare in the branch, and was letting her drink, when General Hill came up, as before stated. I think General Lane will recollect my coming to him later in the day, when he was having a rough time. My Colonel was absent on official business that day, and I was trying to make myself useful. I took a hand in anything that 1 could ; car- ried orders for General R. E. Lee ; was sent to General Longstreet, then to Colonel Manning, who was "forming a skirmish line" (to the south of General Lee's headquarters). Colonel Manning put me in charge of the right (he being in centre), and we had a lively time for some hours. That was a grand skirmish line, with the men almost as close together as telegraph poles on the line of a railroad, but we held our position, and were only driven back a short distance by a line of battle, sent against us by the enemy. Later I was ordered to Rich- mond on official business; after attending to which I reported to my Colonel at General Lee's residence on Franklin street, and left there that night after supper.
Trusting you may find something to interest your readers in this my first communication, I am
Yours very truly,
"Courier,"
Artillery Second Corps.
LETTER FROM COLONEL C. S. VENABLE.
Vevay, Switzerland, December 25th, 1883.
My Dear Sir, — Your postal of November 26, has been forwarded to me here, as well as the clipping from the Dispatch giving Tucker's account of General A. P. Hill's death. Tucker's is a true statement, doubtless, of the circumstances immediately attending the death of General Hill at the hands of the Federal skirmishers— but his memory has failed him in several points which should have been presented in order to give a true picture of the sad event, and a fuller idea of the anxious devotion to duty and love for his troops which made the General on that latal morning utterly reckless of his own life.
General Hill reached General Lee's headquarters before light and reported personally to the General in his own room. General Long- street had arrived from the north side of the Appomattox about one o'clock the same morning and was lying on the floor of the Adjutant's
