Robert Clinton Hill

After graduating from West Point he was appointed brevet 2nd Lieutenant, 6th US Infantry on 1 July 1855 and was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant on 18 October 1855 and assigned to the 5th US Infantry. He saw service on the Sioux Expedition (1855-56), in action against the Seminoles in Florida (1856-57), and on the Utah Expedition (1857-59). He resigned his commission on 3 March 1861.

He was commissioned Lieutenant of Artillery, CSA on 16 March 1861 then Major and Assistant Adjutant General in August, assigned to General Toombs. He went to General Branch's staff in November. He was elected Colonel of the 48th North Carolina Infantry as it was organized on 9 April 1862.

He commanded the regiment on the Campaign. In action near the Dunkard Church at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862:

The Forty-eighth Regiment occupied that part of the line at the church. The church was about the center of the regiment. We drove the enemy out of the woods, and charged their line east of the church, but were cut all to pieces. We lost about one-half of our men, killed and wounded ... [map]

Colonel R. C. Hill was a very fine military man, very strict and much beloved by his men, but being in bad health he was often absent. He only commanded the regiment in the campaign of 1862 and 1863.

His service and the quotes above from the History.1 Further details from Cullum2 (Hill is Cullum #1709) and Krick.3 His gravesite is on Findagrave; his stone has his death on 4 December 1864.

See his version of a conversation he had with General George Custer near Fredericksburg in August 1863, in a letter he wrote to the Sentinel as published in the New York Times of 20 September 1863.

A watercolor landscape he painted in May 1854 was offered for sale online by the William Reese Company (2020).

07/28/1833; Iredell County, NC

12/04/1863; near Statesville, NC; burial in Bethany Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Statesville, NC