Hilgard

try life, for constitutional freedom, and wished
to provide for his large family a wider scope for
their activity. Accordingly, having heard from
friends and relatives accurate accounts of the
advantages and disadvantages of pioneer life in
the Missouri and Mississippi country, he made
his calculation and decided to emigrate.

By way of Havre and New Orleans he arrived
in St. Louis in the spring of 1836 with his wife
(Margaretha Pauli, of Osthofen near Worms)
and their four sons and five daughters. Their
destination was Belleville, 111., on the other side
of the river, where they were welcomed in the
German colony of "Latin farmers," so called
because most of these pioneers had come over
with greater knowledge of the classics than of
farming. They settled on the hills of Richland
Creek, near Belleville, on a tract containing good
timber and some rich farm land. The place was
soon improved with dwellings, orchards, and
gardens. Hilgard applied himself diligently to
the task of farming and became noted locally as
an expert in horticulture and viticulture. Though
he was a learned jurist, he never practised law
in his new home nor did he enter politics, except
as an adviser to his German neighbors, personal-
ly or in articles written for the German language
press. He continued his favorite studies, how-
ever—mathematics, the classics and modem lan-
guages—and his children reaped the benefit of
his scholarship. He carefully instructed his own
sons so that they found no difficulty in matricu-
lating in German universities. The oldest, Ju-
lius Erasmus [g.^.], inheriting his father's ge-
nius for mathematics, became an engineer and
chief of the United States Coast Survey; the
youngest, Eugene Woldemar [c?.z>.], was distin-
guished as an authority on soils. Theodor Hil-
gard parcelled out a large part of his land in
building lots, which he sold profitably, thereby
gaining a reputation for parsimony. He shrewd-
ly bought tracts in other parts of the state, found-
ing upon one of them the town of Freedom as he
had previously founded West Belleville* He
held, however, the original estate long after the
death of his first wife and after all his children
had homes of their own. At the age of sixty-
four he married Maria Theveny and with her re-
turned to Germany in 1854, finally making his
home at Heidelberg, where he died in 1873.

Hilgard was the author of a large number of
essays on social subjects, including: Zwolf Par-
agraphen fiber Pauperismus und die Mittel ihm
tsusteuern (1847), reviewed in the Westminster
and Foreign Quarterly Review, July 1848, and
translated by himself into French; Bine Stimme
kfy uber verfassungsmassige Mo-

Hill

narchie und Republik (1849) ; Uber Deutsch-
lands Nationaleinheit und ihr Verhdltnis zwr
Freiheit (1849). He wrote verse in German for
private circulation only, but took more pride in
his translations of King Lear, the Nibelungenlied,
Tom Moore's The Fire Worshippers, and Ovid's
Metamorphoses. In 1860, at Heidelberg, he pub-
lished his autobiography.

[Hilgard, Meine Erinnerungen (1860) ; Gustav Kor-
ner, Das deutsche Element in den Vereinigten Staaten
von Nordamerika 1818-48 (1880) ; Memoirs of Gus-
tave Koerner, 1809-1896 (2 vols., 1909), ed. by T, J.
McCormack.]

HILL, AMBROSE POWELL (Nov. 9, 1825-
Apr. 2, 1865), soldier, son of Maj. Thomas Hill
(1789-1868) and Fannie Russell Baptist Hill,
was born in the town of Culpeper, Va. He was
given his preliminary education at Shnms's
Academy, and entered West Point in July 1842,
but, being deficient in philosophy and chemistry
at the end of his third year, did not graduate
until 1847, when he was fifteenth in a class of
thirty-eight He saw service in Mexico at Hua-
mantla and Atlixco in October 1847. After the
war he did garrison duty at Fort McHenry, at
Key West, and at Barrancas Barracks, Fla., and
in 1852 was on the Texas frontier, besides partic-
ipating in both the Seminole campaigns (1849-
50 and 1853-55). Promoted first lieutenant on
Sept. 4, 1851, he was in the Washington office of
the superintendent of the coast survey from No-
vember 1855 to October 1860, when he procured
leave of absence. In May 1859, he married Kitty
Grosh Morgan (1833-1920), sister of John H.
Morgan, subsequently a renowned Confederate
leader.
Hill resigned from the United States army on
Mar. i, 1861, was named colonel of the I3th Vir-
ginia Infantry, served for a short time in West
Virginia, and was in reserve with his regiment
at First Manassas. He spent the winter of 1861-
62 in northern Virginia, and on Feb. 26, 1862,
was made brigadier-general. At Williamsburg,
Va., on May 5, during Johnston's retreat up the
Peninsula, Hill met the pursuing Federals and
lost heavily but won many plaudits. The organi-
zation of his brigade, Longstreet reported, "was
perfect throughout the battle, and it was marched
off the field in as good order as it entered it."
Hill was named major-general on May 26, 1862,
and held the left of the Confederate lines around
Richmond until June 26, when, with approxi-
mately 14,000 men, he opened the battle of the
Seven Days. He bore the brunt of the fight at
Mechanicsville that evening; on the 27th, he
was the first to engage the enemy at Gaines's
Mm and sustained most pf fte s&pci pf