Confederate general R.S. Ewell

by Paul D. Casdorph

"Richard Stoddert Ewell is best known as the Confederate general selected by Robert E. Lee to replaced "Stonewall" Jackson as chief of the Second Corps in the Army of Northern Virginia. Ewell is also remembered as the general who failed to drive the Federal troops from the high ground of Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill during the Battle of Gettysburg. Many historians believe that Ewell's inaction cost the Confederates a victory in this seminal battle and, ultimately, the Civil War." "During his long military career, Ewell was never an aggressive warrior. He graduated from West Point and served in the Indian wars in Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, and Arizona. In 1861, he resigned his commission in the U.S. Army and rushed to the Confederate standard. Ewell saw action at First Manassas and took up divisional command under Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley campaign and in the Seven Days battles around Richmond." "A crippling wound and a leg amputation soon compounded the persistent manic-depr