Comments Sought on Why Lee Didn't Sack Lt. Gen. A. P. Hill

I've reached the conclusion that Lee didn't sack Lt. Gen. A. P. Hill either because Lee didn't think Hill was as unfit for corps command as Ewell, or because there was no place to put Hill out to pasture commensurate with his rank.  

Ewell lost his composure at Spotsylvania.  Hill allowed a subordinate to blunder into an undesired general engagement at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863; failed to inform his subordinates of his whereabouts on July 2, thus hundering reinforcement of his corps' attack on Cemetery Ridge; failed to recommend his freshest, strongest brigades for the first wave of Pickett's Charge on July 3; launched an inadequately reconnoitered attack at Bristoe Station on October 14 that ended in a bloody repulse; failed to strengthen up his lines on the night of May 5-6 in the Wilderness, resulting in their collapse on May 6; was too ill to lead his corps at the beginning of Spotsylvania; launched a piecemeal attack that failed at Jericho Mills on May 23; and impaired execution of Mahone's plan that routed II Corps on June 22.

Ewell got the Department of Richmond when he lost his corps in May.  Early remained in command of the Army of the Valley District with a division of infantry and two of cavalry in December.  There was no place to park Hill commensurate with his rank.

I contend that if Hill's position had opened up, there was no reason not to promote Mahone to fill it after his contribution to victory at Jerusalem Plank Road (June 22-23) and First Reams Station (June 29), and certainly after the Crater (July 30).  Lee had the gumption to promote Mahone's staffer Girardey from captain to brigadier general over several colonels after the Crater; why would Lee have lacked the nerve to promote Mahone over Heth and Wilcox?

Please prove me wrong.

Thanks,

John Horn

Inscribed Copies of "The Siege of Petersburg: The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864" for Sale at a Discount to Amazon's Price

I have for sale at a discount to Amazon's price a few brand new copies of The Siege of Petersburg:  The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864.  This acclaimed book is currently the only volume focused entirely on the dramatic August 1864 fighting around Petersburg. 

Grant's Fourth Offensive at Petersburg...is excellently covered in John Horn's The Siege of Petersburg: The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864.  This revised, expanded edition of his original 1991 book ranks as the foremost study of the Fourth Offensive.  It belongs in every Civil War Library.

--Richard J. Sommers, author of Richmond Redeemed: The Siege at Petersburg


A superior piece of Civil War Scholarship.

--Edwin C. Bearss, former Chief Historian of the National Park Service and award-winning author of The Petersburg Campaign: Volume I, The Eastern Front Battles and Volume II, The Western Front Battles 

My profits from my 2024 sales of "The Siege of Petersburg: The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864" will go toward my fellow author Eric Wittenberg's medical bills.

Amazon's best price for a new book is $24.39 plus $3.99 shipping, a total of $28.38.

My price for a new book is $20.00 and shipping (media mail USPS) is free in the USA.

Plus I'll inscribe the copies I sell. 

Those interested in purchasing a copy should contact me at johnedwardhorn@gmail.com.

Or just send a check for $20 and your address to John Horn at 16710 Oak Park Avenue, Tinley Park, IL 60477-2716 and I'll send you an inscribed copy.

The dust jacket is from a Keith Rocco painting that hangs in the Tinley Park, Illinois, Historical Society, just down the street from my law office.  The painting depicts the charge of the 39th Illinois on August 16, 1864.  The 39th was the only regiment from Illinois in Grant's army group at the time.  The 39th and its brigade broke through an entrenched Confederate line.  The 39th's color bearer, Henry Hardenbergh, was wounded in the charge but picked himself up, charged down the line and captured the colors of an Alabama regiment.  For this he earned a Medal of Honor and a battlefield commission.  He received them posthumously, being killed on August 28, 1864, in the Bermuda Hundred trenches.  He is buried about six miles south of Petersburg, Virginia, in Poplar Grove National Cemetery.

My next book (working title:  Grant Lays Siege to Lee:  Petersburg, June 18-July 1, 1864) may be published as early as 2025.  The last proofreader has delivered the manuscript to me.  The last document I needed to review arrived today.  The manuscript goes off to Savas Beatie by the end of this month!