A.P. Hill’s March

A.P. Hill’s March. “Not a moment too soon”. , About two o’clock in the afternoon of September 17, 1862, Confederate Gen. A.P. Hill’s 3,000-man division began crossing the Potomac River at Boteler’s Ford about two miles northwest of here, en route to the battle raging at Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, Maryland. Two days earlier, Stonewall Jackson had captured Harpers Ferry. When Jackson’s command was ordered to rejoin Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in Maryland, Hill’s division remained behind to parole Federal prisoners and secure supplies and equipment. Hill was summoned, too, and got his division on the march within an hour. He took five brigades, leaving one to finish removing the captured equipment., Hill pushed his men hard during the 17-mile trek from Harpers Ferry to the Antietam battlefield. The late-summer day was warm and humid, and some of the men fell exhausted by the way on this “long and fatiguing march.” But they arrived on the battlefield less than eight hours after leaving Harpers Ferry, just in time to be thrown into the fight. When Hill reported, Lee exclaimed, “General Hill, I was never so glad to see you.” Wearing a bright red shirt and waving his sword, Hill directed his men to strike the flank of the oncoming Federal line. As Hill later put it, “My troops were not a moment too soon.” They turned back the Union assault and saved Lee’s army from a crushing defeat on the bloodiest day in American history.