On May 22, 1865, former Confederate Captain George W. Summers, Sgt. Isaac Newton Koontz, Pvt. Jacob Daniel Koontz, and Pvt. Andrew Jackson Kite, all from the 7th Virginia Cavalry, left their homes in Page County to obtain their paroles and near Narrow Passage encountered a small party of Union cavalrymen. In the altercation that followed, the four men drew revolvers and took the Federals' horses and other property, but soon regretted it and, at Summers' father's insistence, returned the horses and other items to the 192nd Ohio Infantry camp at Rude's Hill, where Col. Francis Butterfield promised them no harm. Almost a month later, on June 26, Lt. Col. Cyrus Hussey, commanding the Ohio regiment in Butterfield's absence, ordered their arrest and execution despite that promise, possibly acting on accusations by local Unionist William Tharp. Kite and Jacob Koontz escaped arrest, but Summers and Isaac Koontz were shot at Rude's Hill at 7:30 P.M. on June 27. Before their deaths, 22-year-old Summers wrote to his parents, "Very much to my surprise, we must soon leave this world," and 20-year-old Koontz wrote to his fiancée, Emma Shuler, "Oh, Emma, dearest in the world to me, how can I leave you. ...Try to meet me in heaven where I hope to go." It remains unclear whether they were executed for their actions on May 22 or because of rumors spread by Tharp in retaliation for his mistreatment as a Southern Unionist.