Joshua Hill served in the United States House of Representatives prior to the Civil War and strongly opposed secession. During the War he ran for governor as the so-called peace candidate and later met with William T. Sherman in peace negotiations that failed. In November 1864 when the March to the Sea reached his hometown, Hill interceded with the Union command and earned his legendary, if sometimes exaggerated, title as the man who saved Madison, the village "too pretty to burn." Bradley R. Rice's meticulous research has produced a long overdue account of the life and times of the man who was, as his gravestone reads, "a staunch southern friend of the Union."