Nearby stood Stony Lonesome, the childhood home of Richard S. Ewell, one of the Confederacy's most distinguished generals. Ewell left the farm in 1836 to enter West Point and graduated in 1840. As a lieutenant with the 1st U.S. Dragoons, he served on the western frontier and fought with distinction in the Mexican War. When the Civil War began, he joined the Confederacy as a colonel, was slightly wounded at Fairfax Courthouse on June 1, 1861, and was promoted to brigadier general before First Manassas. Known as "Old Baldy," he commanded a division under Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, Seven Days, and Second Manassas campaigns until a severe wound on August 28, 1862, led to the amputation of his left leg. After Jackson's death in May 1863, Ewell was promoted to lieutenant general and commanded the Army of Northern Virginia's II Corps at Gettysburg, Bristoe Station, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania. His capture at Sailor's Creek in April 1865 ended his military service, and after the war he retired to his wife's Tennessee farm, where he died in 1872.