“On the termination of the war, his conduct until his death has challenged the admiration of friends and foes; he honestly acquiesced in the inevitable result of the struggle; no discontent, sourness, or complaint, has marred his tranquil life at Washington College, where death found him at his post of duty, engaged in fitting the young men of his country, by proper discipline and education, for the performance of the varied duties of life.  It is somewhat singular that both Lee and his great lieutenant, Jackson, should in their last moments have referred to Hill.  It is reported that General Lee said, ‘Let my tent be struck; send for Hill;’ while the lamented Jackson in his delirium cried out, ’Let A.P.  Hill prepare for action; march the infantry rapidly to the front.  Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.’  Both heroes died with commands for military movements on their lips; both the noblest specimens of the Christian soldier produced by any country or any age; both now rest under the shade of the trees of heaven.”

REV.  DR. PALMER

Then spoke as follows: 

“Ladies and Gentlemen:  I should have been better pleased had I been permitted to sit a simple listener to the eloquent tribute paid to the immortal chieftain who now reposes in death, by the speaker who has just taken his seat.  The nature of my calling so far separates me from public life that I am scarcely competent for the office of alluding to the elements which naturally gather around his career.  When informed that other artists would draw the picture of the warrior and the hero, I yielded a cheerful compliance, in the belief that nothing was left but to describe the Christian and the man.  You are entirely familiar with the early life of him over whose grave you this night shed tears; with his grave and sedate boyhood giving promise of the reserved force of mature manhood; with his academic career at West Point, where he received the highest honors of a class brilliant with such names as General Joseph E. Johnston; his seizure of the highest honors of a long apprenticeship in that institution, and his abrupt ascension in the Mexican War from obscurity to fame—­all are too firmly stamped in the minds of his admirers to require even an allusion.  You are too familiar to need a repetition from my lips of that great mental and spiritual struggle passed, not one night, but many, when, abandoning the service in which he had gathered so much of honor and reputation, he determined to lay his heart upon the altar of his native State, and swear to live or die in her defence.