Albert Gallatin Willis was a Mosby Ranger buried here after sacrificing himself for a friend during the brutal cycle of retaliation in northern Virginia in the autumn of 1864. By then, John S. Mosby's Rangers had so harassed Union troops, supply lines, and railroads that Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant ordered that any of Mosby's men caught be hanged without trial. Six Rangers were summarily executed in Front Royal on September 23, with one dragged through the streets as his mother begged for his life. On October 10, Rangers on the Chancellor farm near here captured a Federal soldier posing as a Confederate and hanged him on the spot, and in retaliation Union Gen. William H. Powell burned the farm buildings. On the afternoon of October 12, Willis, a ministerial student, shared a meal with Miss Lucy Twisdale at Rose Cliff. Soon afterward, he and another Ranger were captured at the blacksmith shop on Ben Venue plantation and taken to the Marlow farm near the Chester Gap Turnpike at the foot of the Blue Ridge. Powell ordered that one of the two be executed. Willis's companion, first chosen, begged for his life because he was married, had a family, and was not prepared to die. Willis, who was single, offered to take his place and then prayed for the executioners. He was hanged the next day from a poplar tree on the Marlow farm. Lucy Twisdale and three male friends retrieved his body and buried him in the corner of the churchyard. On November 6, 1864, in retaliation for Willis and the six Rangers killed in Front Royal, Mosby had twenty-odd Union prisoners from Custer and Powell's commands draw lots. Near Berryville, seven men were selected for execution: three were hanged, two were shot, and two escaped. Mosby wrote to Union Gen. Philip H. Sheridan that future prisoners falling into his hands would be treated with kindness unless another act of barbarity compelled him to adopt a policy repugnant to humanity. No more summary executions by either side occurred in Mosby's Confederacy.