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Performing historian to give next WNCCWRT program
By Lynn Hotaling
The actor who played Confederate Gen. A.P. Hill in the movie “Gettysburg” will bring his performing history act to the Justice Center next week.
Patrick Falci of New York, who has been fascinated with a trio of Confederate generals since he was a child, will tell Gen. Hill’s story Monday, April 10, during the next meeting of the Western North Carolina Civil War Round Table, set for 6:30 p.m. in Room 215 of the Justice Center.
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Patrick Falci, actor and performance historian, portrayed Confederate General A.P. Hill in the movie “Gettysburg” and will reprise that role Monday, April 10, for the Western Carolina Civil War Round Table. The event, which begins at 6:30 p.m. in Room 215 of the Justice Center, is free. Falci, above, is pictured with a portrait of Hill, which hangs at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia, where the actor presented a Nov. 9 program last fall to mark the 180th anniversary of Hill’s 1825 birth. Falci will perform the same program Monday in Sylva. The actor travelled to Petersburg this past Sunday, as he does every April 2, which is the date of Hill’s 1865 death, to participate in special memorial services for the general.
Falci, who is both an actor and an historian, says he tries to combine both of his vocations to render a realistic portrait of Hill, who was Lee’s right-hand man during the bloody days of the American Civil War.
Despite his unmistakable Yankee origins, the New York-born Falci (he says his southern accent will be in place when he arrives in Gen. Hill’s gray uniform), said last week that it was the Confederate generals – Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and A.P. Hill – who seemed the more interesting Civil War figures.
“When I was 8 years old, I had a children’s book about the Civil War,” he said. “I was fascinated by Lee and Jackson.”
It was through reading about his heroes that Falci discovered the stalwart Hill.
“He was always in the right place at the right time,” Falci said of Hill. “Without Hill, the Civil War might have ended at Sharpsburg (Antietam), Md., in 1862.”
According to Falci, Hill cemented his place in history during that Sept. 17, 1862, battle. Lee, with fewer than 40,000 men, was at risk of being overwhelmed by Gen. George McClellan, who commanded a Union Army that numbered close to 90,000. When a messenger reached Hill to tell him of Lee’s plight, Hill force-marched his 5,000 men from Harpers Ferry, Va., to help Lee’s Army fend off the Union threat.
“That was the day he saved Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia and truly became a Confederate legend,” Falci said.
An interesting footnote to the story is that while Hill no doubt would have done anything possible for Lee and the Confederacy, he was spurred on that day by a smoldering grudge against McClellan, Falci said.
“Hill and McClellan were roommates at West Point, and both of them courted the same woman – Ellen Marcy,” Falci said. “Ellen was first engaged to Hill, but her parents considered McClellan the more promising suitor, so Ellen jilted Hill and married McClellan. Hill wanted to save Lee, but he also wanted to get back at McClellan,” Falci said.
Hill’s relationship with his more famous counterpart, Jackson, was also an interesting one, Falci said. The two future Confederate generals entered West Point together, but they never got along, and there were many conflicts between them. Despite that animosity, Jackson called for Hill on his deathbed: “Order A.P. Hill to action” were among the last words Jackson spoke before his May 10, 1863, death, according to Falci. Jackson was wounded May 2, 1863, by friendly fire in the aftermath of the battle of Chancellorsville and died eight days later.
Some seven years later, on Oct. 12, 1870, Lee also invoked Hill’s name in death: “Tell A.P. Hill he must come up,” Lee said, though Hill by that time had been dead for more than five years, Falci said.
Hill’s own death came during the battle around Petersburg, just one week before Lee would surrender at Appomattox, Falci said.
The actor brings impeccable credentials to his Sylva performance. In addition to portraying Hill in “Gettysburg,” Falci served as historical advisor for the movie. He has helped novelist Jeff Shaara with research on his acclaimed books “Gods and Generals” and “The Last Full Measure” as well as assisting the author with his soon-to-be-published “Jeff Shaara’s Battlefields,” which is due April 25.
Falci’s longstanding fascination with the Civil War borders on the obsessive. He and his wife, Joan, were married in Washington and Lee University’s Lee Chapel, where Robert E. Lee is buried, on April 9, the anniversary of Lee’s surrender.
While Falci will be dressed as Hill on Monday night, he said he won’t literally be playing the part of Hill; instead, he’ll be portraying the war through Hill’s eyes.
Falci will tell the powerful story of Ambrose Powell Hill, a general who wore a red shirt into battle so his men could see him on the battlefield, and who was always in the right place when Gen. Lee needed him.
“We think Patrick Falci will be one of the most exciting speakers we have ever brought to Sylva,” said Carrie Holthouser, president of the local Civil War Round Table. “He brings the Civil War to life in a way that few historians can, and we invite everyone to join us for this special presentation.”
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