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W.H. Hill
(c. 1840 - ?)
Home State: Pennsylvania
Branch of Service: Infantry
Before Antietam
Age 21, from Philadelphia, he enrolled and mustered as 2nd Lieutenant, Company G, 30th Pennsylvania Infantry on 9 August 1861 in Philadelphia, PA; they were designated the 66th Pennsylvania in September. On 1 March 1862 the regiment was disbanded, and he and his company transferred as Company K, 99th Pennsylvania Infantry. He was detailed to the Signal Corps in March 1862, received training at Red Hill, Georgetown, DC, and reported to General McClellan's headquarters on the Virginia Peninsula in May.
On the Campaign
In his after-action report Major Myer wrote:
For services at the battle of Antietam [on 17 September 1862] ... First Lieut. J. B. Brooks, Fourth Vermont Volunteers; Second Lieut. W. H. Hill, Ninety-ninth Pennsylvania Volunteers, occupying a station near the Hagerstown turnpike [with General Sumner], and freely exposing themselves under fire in the discharge of their duties (this station was near the right of the army) ...
The rest of the War
He was at Fredericksburg, VA in December, was promoted to Captain on 2 February, and was at Chancellorsville, VA in May 1863. He was in action at Gettysburg, PA in July and in August was appointed Captain in the Signal Corps, US Volunteers, and served at that rank, but was not ultimately confirmed by the US Senate. In July 1864 he was commissioned First Lieutenant in the Signal Corps, to date from March 1863. He served in the Departments of Washington and of Virginia and North Carolina until resigning on 24 January 1865. He was honored by brevet to Captain, USV on 13 March 1865 for his war service.
After the War
In 1883 he applied for an invalid veteran's pension, as Captain, Signal Corps, and there is subsequent correspondence within the War Department debating his status as a Captain or First Lieutenant.
References & notes
His basic service from Bates,1 the Card File,2 Brown,3 source also of his picture, and Heitman,4 source also of his middle name. His Maryland Campaign service from Major Myer's Report. Further details from Letters and their enclosures received by the Commission Branch of the Adjutant General's Office, 1863-70 (NARA M1064) online via fold3.
More on the Web
His 1862 diary is in the collection of Schoharie County, NY historian Theodore B. Shuart.
Birth
c. 1840 in PA
1 Bates, Samuel Penniman, History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-65, Harrisburg: State of Pennsylvania, 1868-1871 [AotW citation 28746]
2 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Adjutant-General, Pennsylvania Civil War Veterans' Card File, 1861-1866, Published <2005, first accessed 01 July 2005, <http://www.digitalarchives.state.pa.us/archive.asp?view=ArchiveIndexes&ArchiveID=17> [AotW citation 28747]
3 Brown, J. Willard, The Signal Corps, U.S.A. in the War of the Rebellion, Boston: U.S. Veteran Signal Corps Association, 1896, before pg. 321; pp. 156, 332, 346, 365, 793 [AotW citation 28748]
4 Heitman, Francis Bernard, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army 1789-1903, 2 volumes, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1903, Vol. 1, pg. 530 [AotW citation 28749]