In the final days of the Army of Northern Virginia, the death of Lieutenant General Ambrose Powell Hill removed one of the Confederacy’s most respected corps commanders from the field. Hill, a Virginian and a graduate of West Point, had risen to lead a corps under Robert E. Lee and had proven himself in numerous battles across the war. The man who fired the fatal shot was a Union corporal from Pennsylvania named John Watson Mauck, a volunteer in the 138th Pennsylvania Infantry.
From the moment of Hill’s death until Mauck’s own passing in 1898, the corporal rarely spoke of the incident, and when he did, it was usually to correct a misstatement in some account that had reached him. Mauck left behind two slightly different accounts of the events of April 2, 1865. The first appeared in the Pittsburgh Post on August 22, 1898, just days after Mauck died at the age of fifty-eight. According to the newspaper, the statement had been given in 1880, eighteen years before his death.
The text was written in the third person, a common practice of the time, and given Mauck’s reluctance to speak publicly, he may have used that form out of modesty. In this telling, Corporal John W. Mauck and Daniel Wohlford of Company F of the 138th Pennsylvania Volunteers, along with another man they did not know, were near Petersburg, Virginia, on April 2, 1865. After the charge against the rebel fortifications from the front, and after the larger part of the troops had moved to the left side of the enemy forts, the three men separated from the main force and advanced toward the railroad.
A wagon road ran almost parallel to the tracks, and near the point where they crossed the line stood a sawmill. Under some boards they found crowbars, which they used to pry up some of the rails. After damaging the track, they made their way back through a swamp toward a group of Union soldiers on a hill near the former rebel fortifications. Those men were stragglers from their units, preparing coffee and the like.
As Mauck and Wohlford approached the swamp, they saw two men on horseback riding toward the soldiers on the hill. The riders looked like officers, but when they spotted the men on the hill, they turned and headed toward the spot where Mauck and Wohlford stood behind a large tree. One of the officers hung back while the other advanced, pistol in hand, demanding their surrender. Mauck and Wohlford refused.
The officer insisted they would have to surrender anyway, claiming a body of soldiers was following, but Mauck refused and told his companion, “Let us shoot him. ” Both men fired instantly. Mauck aimed at the man in front, who fell dead from his saddle, while the other slumped forward onto his horse’s neck and rode off, the second horse following. Shortly afterward, Mauck told the men he would go see what the officer had been carrying, but he soon spotted a skirmish line approaching.
When Mauck stopped them, the men asked, among other things, whether a man had been killed nearby, and upon learning of the death, they departed. Some of the group wore rebel clothing. Those dressed in blue claimed they were taking the others as prisoners, but in reality they were rebels searching for Hill’s body. Mauck and Wohlford soon rejoined their regiment and heard nothing more until they were summoned to headquarters to answer questions, where they learned that the famous Confederate general A.
P. Hill had been killed. The second account appeared a year after Mauck’s death, in 1899, in the papers of the Southern Historical Society. This version differed in two ways.
It used a different approach to telling the story, and Mauck spoke in his own voice. The account, titled “Testimony of Corporal Mauck,” read as follows. On the morning of April 2, 1865, after the rebel fortifications in front had been taken, the main body of troops spread to the left inside the enemy’s works. A portion of the Second Brigade, Third Division, Sixth Corps separated from the main force and advanced toward the railroad and a wagon road running parallel to it.
Mauck and his companion Daniel Wohlford, of Company F, 138th Pennsylvania Infantry, reached that point and arrived at a sawmill located directly across the railroad. Nearby, under a pile of boards close to the track, they found iron crowbars, which they used to pull up two rails from the line. Before separating from the others, they had seen a wagon train passing and had fired on it, expecting to capture it, which explained their advance in that direction. After destroying the track, they angled left away from the railroad toward a swamp about half to three-quarters of a mile from the sawmill.
There they tried to cross again on a corduroy road that led through the swamp toward a group of their men on the hill near the line of the former rebel fortifications. Those men were stragglers from their units, cooking coffee and eating breakfast. As soon as they entered the swamp, they saw two men on horses coming from the direction of Petersburg, who appeared to be officers. They advanced until they reached the men on the hill, then turned and rode their horses toward Mauck and Wohlford, who had just entered the swamp when the officers came forward with loaded pistols pointed at them.
Seeing a large oak tree near the road, they took cover behind it. One of the rebel officers remained in the rear, apparently on orders from his commander. The other advanced with his pistol aimed at them and demanded their surrender, saying, “Surrender or I will shoot you. ” A force of soldiers was advancing on their left, from the direction of Petersburg, and they would have to surrender anyway.
The officer continued forward and demanded firmly, “Give up your arms. ” Mauck said, “This I could not consent to,” and told his companion Wohlford, “Let us fire on them. ” They raised their guns at once and fired. Mauck dropped his man from the saddle, while the other officer threw himself forward on his horse’s neck and rode off in the direction from which they had come, the other horse following.
Not knowing what was on their flank and unable to see in that direction, they retreated deeper into the swamp and crossed over to their men on the hill. Shortly afterward, Mauck told Wohlford he would go see what the officer had carried with him. He went a short distance and saw what he thought was a skirmish line advancing. He returned and brought part of the men from the hill, perhaps ten or fifteen of them, and deployed them as skirmishers for defense.
The advancing line came within hailing distance. Mauck ordered them to halt, and they did. He then called out, “Raise your hands, come forward and identify yourselves. ” Upon questioning, they said they had captured some rebel prisoners and were taking them to the rear.
Six or eight of them carried guns and wore the Union uniform. At that time, many of the others were without guns and wore rebel clothing. Mauck believed their story and allowed them to pass. They turned and asked whether a man had been killed near that place.
He told them he had shot an officer in the swamp, and they went in that direction. At the time, he had no suspicion, but he later concluded it had been a Confederate trick to recover the body of the man he had just killed. Mauck and Wohlford rejoined their regiment shortly afterward and gave the matter no further thought until they were summoned to the headquarters of the brigade and corps to answer questions. After giving his statement, General Wright asked Mauck whether he knew whom he had killed.
Mauck told him he did not. Wright said, “You have killed General A. P. Hill of the Confederate Army.
” All of this happened on the morning after the capture of the rebel fortifications on April 2, 1865. The death of A. P.
Hill, one of Lee’s most trusted commanders, came at a moment when the Confederate lines around Petersburg were collapsing, and within a week the Army of Northern Virginia would surrender at Appomattox.