Private Albert G. Willis of Company C, Colonel John S. Mosby's Partisan Rangers, Forty-third Battalion, Virginia Cavalry, and at least one other Ranger were captured about 13 October 1864 near Gaines Crossroads by Union Brigadier General William H. Powell's U.S. 2d Cavalry Division. During the Civil War, many Federals considered partisans civilian bushwhackers rather than regular soldiers. In reprisal for what Powell called the murder of a U.S. soldier by alleged partisans, he ordered a Ranger executed. According to some postwar sources, Willis, a ministerial student, offered his life in place of a married cohort. He was hanged nearby on 14 October and buried at a Baptist church in Flint Hill.
