Raised in Virginia and trained at West Point, Richard Ewell resigned his U.S. military commission when the Civil War broke out in 1861. That July, he was promoted to major general in the Confederate Army and served as a trusted subordinate of Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson during the latter’s Shenandoah Valley campaign. Wounded near Manassas in mid-1862, he recovered and fought at Chancellorsville, after which he was given command of a corps in the Army of Northern Virginia. After the Confederate loss at the Battle of Gettysburg, Ewell was criticized for his hesitation in attacking Union defenses on Cemetery Hill on the first day of fighting.
