General A. P. Hill

A. P. Hill stares vacantly away from the camera in this glass-plate image probably taken about 1860. Often in poor health, the Confederate general put in uneven combat performances during the first few years of the war, but matured as a commander during the siege of Petersburg. He would lose his life outside that town on April 2, 1865, while trying to repair a massive breach torn in his lines by Union troops. As he rode through the early morning mist, he encountered two soldiers of the 138th Pennsylvania Infantry who shot him off of his horse, killing him instantly with a bullet through the heart.