Handwritten in period ink on blue paper this September 1863 document is by Surgeon George Ross requesting a furlough for Private S. F. Harper of Company A, 22^nd North Carolina Infantry still suffering from the effects of a wound received at Seven Pines. The reverse of the document is endorsed and signed by Lieutenant General Ambrose Powell Hill. The ink on the entire document is light and Hill’s endorsement is difficult to read but his signature “A. P. HILL, LIEUT. GEN.”

Document meas. approx. 8.00 x 10.00 inches and is framed so that both sides can be seen. The front side, containing Dr. Ross’s request is easily readable. Document is in good overall condition with three vertical and three horizontal fold lines. There is some staining and rubbing to the paper just below the General’s signature but this does not affect it.

Framed with the document is a wartime CDV engraving of General Hill in uniform and a nice engraved plaque describing the purpose of the document. Frame meas. approx. 13.50 x 16.50 inches. It has a gold wood border and a gray mat with gold accents. Frame is in excellent condition.

Ambrose Powell Hill was born November 9, 1825 in Culpeper, Virginia. He attended West Point and graduated in 1847. He served in the Mexican and Seminole Wars and left the US Army to join the Confederacy where he rose to be a Lieutenant General and a Corps commander. He gained early fame as the commander of the "Light Division" in the Seven Days Battles and became one of Stonewall Jackson's ablest subordinates, distinguishing himself in the 1862 battles of Cedar Mountain, Second Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburg.

Following Jackson's death in May 1863 at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Hill was promoted to Lieutenant General and commanded the Third Corps of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, which he led in the Gettysburg Campaign and the fall campaigns of 1863. His command of the corps in 1864–65 was interrupted on multiple occasions by illness, from which he did not return until just before the end of the war, when he was killed during the Union offensive at the Five Forks. He is buried in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond.

Samuel Finley Harper was born in Fairfield, North Carolina on July 10, 1843. He enlisted as a Private in Company A, 22^nd North Carolina on April 30, 1861. He was wounded at Seven Pines on May 31, 1862 and at some point after his recovery was assigned to duties as a teamster and surgeon’s clerk. He was paroled at Appomattox on April 9, 1865 and died in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1929.  [ad]

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