WHAT: Confederate General Ambrose Powell Hill in Richmond, Virginia.
LOCATION: Laburnum Avenue and Hermitage Road in the center of the intersection.
ARTIST: William Ludwell Sheppard.
DEDICATION: May 30, 1892.
DESCRIPTION: A 9 1/2 foot high standing likeness of General Hill which is mounted on a 24 1/2 foot high pedestal which contains the remains of the General. The monument is on land donated by Major Lewis Ginter and was erected by the efforts of Pegram’s Battalion. Caspar Burberl of New York enlarged in bronze Sheppard’s model.
* * *
The tale of how Hill came to rest in the middle of Laburnum Avenue is a good one, best told by Gary Robertson in the Richmond Times-Dispatch in April, 2005, 140 years after the general’s death:
Confederate Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill was buried standing up. It took three tries before he reached his final resting place.
And if all that wasn’t odd enough, the search to find his first grave — and perhaps correct the historical record — has been led by a group of Civil War devotees whose primary focus is illuminating not the life of Hill, but of another Confederate general, George E. Pickett.
A member of the Pickett Society noted that the nonprofit society was formed in 1999 to honor Pickett but also to correct “many subjective and historically incorrect items and pretensions.”
Hill was shot to death near Petersburg on April 2, 1865, as his battle lines were collapsing during the last days of the war. Then the race was on to bury him appropriately — and before nature took its course and ravaged his body even further.
Research by the Pickett Society indicates that the first burial came not where some Civil War researchers believe it was, at Bellgrade Plantation, near Huguenot and Robious roads in Chesterfield County.
Pickett Society records at the Virginia Historical Society and other research from local historians and authors, instead indicate that Hill was buried in an area south of the James River near Bosher Dam, in what is now the city of Richmond.
Hill lay in that grave for two years before he was unearthed and his remains transferred in the autumn of 1867 to Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, which was where some of his former soldiers wanted him.
In 1891, the remains were moved again and buried under a statue erected in Hill’s honor at the current intersection of Laburnum Avenue and Hermitage Road.
Richmond On The James 
Posted by Proud son of virginia on September 29, 2020 at 12:55 am
let it never be forgotten sons of virginia fought and died for something so great outsiders not from virginia would never understand virginia is for lovers yankees go home to your no pride states and try to fix them first dont worry if we need your help will call you not the other way around oh if you want some help to understand watch gettysburg then go visit the battlefield see what you have to say then until then blank off
Posted by Proud son of virginia on September 29, 2020 at 12:55 am
let it never be forgotten sons of virginia fought and died for something so great outsiders not from virginia would never understand virginia is for lovers yankees go home to your no pride states and try to fix them first dont worry if we need your help will call you not the other way around oh if you want some help to understand watch gettysburg then go visit the battlefield see what you have to say then until then blank off
Posted by Joseph Ryan on August 28, 2020 at 12:59 pm
Hill’s remains best belong in Fairview Cemetery, Culpeper, where most of his family is buried, not in the middle of an intersection.
Posted by Paul Malmquist on July 7, 2020 at 2:19 pm
I wonder if under the 1914 Annexation of that Henrico land by the city there was a clause that Gravesite and marker could not be removed? Or if it was the land would revert back to Henrico?
Posted by Amber on July 6, 2020 at 5:01 pm
Please go Twitter or facebook…..please. This is not the place for disrespect. He’s dead. Take your disrespect somewhere else. Your not his judge.
R.I.P. A.P. HILL.
Posted by Wayne R Hughes on June 8, 2020 at 6:28 pm
Over the weekend General A .P. HILL Grave was disrespect bye protesters over the weekend. Do they know he was laid too rest there .
Posted by Donald Gibson on April 3, 2020 at 2:54 pm
I think everyone should be respectful of a gravesite, no matter the context of what or who they were, it is basic humanity 101, digging or moving remains is wrong and a crime, if it is done, then how have we learned from history, or gotten better then our ancestors?
Posted by Susan on July 5, 2019 at 10:54 am
For all that think everything to do with the civil war should be destroyed, vandalized, or removed, I say you have a small mind. It is part of Richmond’s history. Part of the world’s history. It can’t be and shouldn’t be removed or destroyed just because it doesn’t fit the narrative of our time or because someone feels “hurt” over it when no one alive today had anything to do with it. To say that nothing that happened in the 1860’s should be acknowledged and the people of the time should be forgotten is a travesty and a blow to history. It happened. We have evolved since then. But we can still reflect and appreciate that these people where great people OF THEIR TIME. And Richmond should embrace that.
Posted by CG Monos on June 6, 2020 at 10:49 pm
I was born in Alexandria VA; taught that Confederate soldiers were more courageous, better soldiers; and led by more capable generals. Like many I soon came to learn that they were traitors to the Union. They denounced the Constitution and swore their allegiance to another country. A country vehemently determined to maintain the abhorrent system of slavery. A.P. Hill of Culpeper’s grave and memorial should be maintained only by his family at a private site. Glorification of a traitor, even if he fought valiantly, has no value that I would want to pass down to my children.
Posted by Anna on May 22, 2021 at 7:58 pm
Learn history.
Posted by Anna on May 22, 2021 at 7:58 pm
Learn history.
Posted by Greta on April 20, 2019 at 10:35 pm
I do not hail A.P. Hill. He was a decorated Confederate soldier who spent more time in war than in peace.
He must have been an earlier sufferer of PTSD because of all the death he saw. He was a skilled leader and that is why he was buried 3 times and finally came to rest under a statue likened to him.
He was raised in Culpepper Virgina where the greatest slave breeding farms were located. I have some thoughts about that but that face is the one of my great great grandfather. I recognize him but I do not honor him
Posted by Gene on April 30, 2019 at 4:29 pm
Not PTSD. He contracted gonorrhea in NYC on his way to West Point (all cadets were warned not to visit the ladies of the night for that very reason). It caused him to take an extra year to graduate, and periodically it would flare, incapacitating him. Such was the case at Gettysburg. This may have been one of the reasons his commanding officer Stonewall Jackson (a junior to him at West Point) seemed to have a short fuse with Hill.
Posted by Craig on September 23, 2019 at 11:30 pm
2 facts about A.P Hill: 1. He only had daughters that bore no children, therefore there are no direct descendants. 2. His family owned no slaves. Source: General A.P. Hill: The Story of a Confederate Warrior: James I. Robertson Jr.:
Posted by Vicious Cur on September 9, 2021 at 11:58 am
Perhaps A.P. Hill produced no legitimate descendants. You can’t rule out the possibility he raped slave women. In fact, research shows African Americans carry an average 20%-30% European DNA. African DNA by itself averages about 2% European DNA. Hill owned several dozen slaves from an early age.
Discount this possibility at your own peril. Didn’t take much digging into my own family’s history to discover an ancestor who willed “a mulatto girl” to one of his sons. Wonder where she came from?
Posted by Bacon Bits: A.P. Hill R.I.P, Tax Cuts, Bike Lanes - Bacon's Rebellion on August 23, 2018 at 10:50 am
[…] tomb of Confederate General A.P. Hill in Northside Richmond is the latest to be vandalized by red paint […]
Posted by Weekly Photo Challenge – Spring (walk in my garden) | PRIORHOUSE blog on May 5, 2014 at 6:52 am
[…] on Laburnum Avenue – sits the lone statue of A.P. Hill – and I have heard some say that they wish an SUV should run into it. I have no opinion […]
Posted by Carol Ao Wolf on June 8, 2020 at 11:39 am
One of the most horrific accidents at this intersection involved a speeding vehicle that t-boned a van driven by a young mother who had just dropped off her young children at their grandparents. The impact of the crash shoved the van into a street light and literally bent the pole over. The driver of the van was killed instantly.
Posted by Amber Hill on July 6, 2020 at 5:07 pm
l. Go to Facebook and twitter…this is not the place.
Posted by Walter Ring on January 27, 2014 at 1:44 pm
It is hard to believe that A. P. Hill’s statue is 6 feet taller than Stonewall Jackson’s statue on Monument Avenue. Hill’s statue is certainly not as large overall, perhaps that is why it looks shorter as well. At any rate, A. P. Hill should have been on Monument Avenue.
Posted by Walter Ring on January 28, 2014 at 12:26 pm
Sorry, my bad. Jackson’s statue is 38 feet tall, making it 4 feet taller than Hill’s. I am usually better at this kind of thing, but nobody’s perfect. At any rate, hail the great A. P. Hill!!!
Posted by Making Bike to Work Day into a consistent habit ‹ James River News Hub on May 27, 2011 at 7:02 am
[…] would pass Joseph Bryan Park, the huge homes on Hermitage Road, General A.P. Hill statue at Laburnum, General Stonewall Jackson at Monument Avenue, the crape myrtle and museum lined […]