Richard S. Stokes joined the Confederate Army as a private on Aug. 7, 1861, and was promoted to 1st Lt., Co. I, 8th infantry, Miss. Regiment, on Aug. 29, 1864. He came to Texas in 1868 and settled in Lampasas County as a rancher and farmer, married Elizabeth Rawson, and had seven children. On July 19, 1911, at Chadwick's Mill on the Colorado River, at age 73, Stokes rescued Lillie B. Evetts, Eva Foster, and R. Ashley Greaves from drowning, and for this feat he received a Carnegie Hero Medal.