If the curriculum at West Point had included a course entitled TACT 101 (the fundamental principles of dealing tactfully with superiors, subordinates, and enemies), Major General Daniel Harvey Hill would have been sent packing as an absolute disgrace. Seeing as this course was not in the schedule, he managed to graduate 28th in a class of fifty-six in the class of 1842.

His irritable manner garnered him a reputation during the War Between the States as an outstanding general and troop leader, who unfortunately couldn't keep his mouth shut. He had the audacity to complain about both Braxton Bragg (who deserved it), and Robert E. Lee (who, arguably, didn't). This prompted his extremely well-deserved promotion to Lieutenant General to die without ever being confirmed by the Confederate Congress. He was aptly described by one Confederate War Department official as, "harsh, abrupt, often insulting in the effort to be sarcastic -- a man who would offend many and conciliate none."

Many of the written communications by General Hill are amusing to say the least, but one letter survives as probably the most vituperative letters written during the course of the war. The letter, which shows some variance from actual fact at the time, is, if nothing else, vintage Harvey Hill. It was written by Hill in response to a letter from Union General John Foster (West Point Class of 1846). Foster had written initially to censure Hill for the burning of Plymouth, North Carolina by the Southern forces in 1863.

Sir: Two communications have been referred to me as the successor of General French. The prisoners from Swindell's company and the Seventh North Carolina are true prisoners of war and if not paroled I will retaliate five-fold.

In regard to your first communication touching the burning of Plymouth you seem to have forgotten two things. You forget, sir, that you are a Yankee and the Plymouth is a Southern town. It is no business of yours if we choose to burn one of our own towns. A meddling Yankee troubles himself with everybody's matters but his own and repents of everybody's sins except his own. We are a different people. Should the Yankees burn a Union village in Connecticut or a codfish town in Massachusetts we would not meddle with them but rather bid them God speed in their work of purifying the atmosphere.

Your second act of forgetfulness consists in your not remembering that you are the most atrocious house-burner as yet unhung in the wide universe. Let me remind you that you have made two raids when you were weary of debauching in your negro harem and when you knew that your forces outnumbered the Confederate five to one, your whole line of march has been marked by burning churches, schoolhouses, private residences, barns, stables, gin-houses, negro cabins, fences in the row, &c. Your men have plundered the country of all that it contained and wantonly destroyed what they could not carry off. Before your started on your freebooting expedition towards Tarborough you addressed your soldiers in the town of Washington and told them that you were going to take them to a rich country full of plunder. With such a hint to your thieves it is not wonderful that your raid was characterized by rapine, pillage, arson, and murder. Learning last December that there was but a single weak brigade on this line you tore yourself from the arms of sable beauty and moved out with 15,000 men on a grand marauding foray. You partially burned Kinston and entirely destroyed the village of White Hall. The elegant mansion of the planter and the hut of the poor farmer and fisherman were alike consumed by your brigands. How matchless is the impudence which in view of this wholesale arson can complain of the burning of Plymouth in the heat of action?

But there another species of effrontery which New England itself cannot excel. When you return to your harem from one of these Union restoring excursions, you write to your government the deliberate lie that you have discovered a large and increasing Union sentiment in this state. No one knows better than yourself that there is not a respectable man in North Carolina in any condition of life who is not utterly and irrevocably opposed to union with your hated and hateful people. A few wealthy men have meanly and falsely professed Union sentiments to save their property and a few ignorant fishermen have joined your ranks but to betray you when the opportunity offers. No one knows better than yourself our people are true as steel and that our poorer classes have excelled the wealthy in their devotion to our cause.

You knowingly and willfully lie when you speak of a Union sentiment in this brave, noble and patriotic State. Whereever the trained and disciplined soldiers of North Carolina have met Federal forces you have been scattered as leaves before the hurricane.

In conclusion let me inform you that I will receive no more white flags from you except the one which covers your surrender at the scene of your lust, your debauchery and your crimes. No one dislikes New England more cordially than I do, but there are thousands of honorable men even there who abhor your career fully as I do.