West Point, New York, United States
Graduated from West Point in 1840, Richard Ewell was commissioned lieutenant of dragoons and assigned to frontier service.
West Point, New York, United States
Graduated from West Point in 1840, Richard Ewell was commissioned lieutenant of dragoons and assigned to frontier service.
Richard Stoddert Ewell was born on 8 February 1817 in Virginian stock in Georgetown, District of Columbia, United States. He was the son of Dr. Thomas and Elizabeth Stoddert Ewell. Richard was raised on a farm called Stony Lonesome in Prince William County.
Graduated from West Point in 1840, Richard Ewell was commissioned lieutenant of dragoons and assigned to frontier service.
At first Manassas, Richard Ewell commanded the 2nd Brigade of Beauregard’s army but had no part in the fighting.
Richard lost a leg at Groveton but returned to duty, May 1863, with the rank of lieutenant-general, although to ride he had to be lifted into the saddle and strapped there. Upon the reorganization of the Confederate army into three corps, after Chancellorsville, at Jackson’s request, Ewell succeeded to the command of the II Corps.
He was ordered to clear the Valley of Federáis, and effected his purpose brilliantly, his victory at Brandy Station and his rout of Milroy at Winchester leading the newspapers to term him "a re-animate Jackson." He then led the Confederate advance into Pennsylvania, reaching Carlisle before being called back toward Gettysburg. Ewell arrived there soon after the battle commenced, took his position on the Confederate left, and by nightfall occupied the town.
He was afterward criticized for failing to press on and storm Cemetery Hill that evening, but it is now conceded that he acted wisely under Lee's discretionary orders.
The second day he launched a spirited attack upon Culp's Hill and renewed the fighting on July 3. Injured again in his defeat at Kelley's Ford, he resumed his command in time to confront Grant successfully in the first Wilderness engagement. His corps participated in the heavy fighting at or about Spotsylvania Court House, bore the brunt of conflict at the "Bloody Angle," and on May 19 effectively delayed the Federal turning movement.
During this action, Ewell's horse was shot under him and he received a fall which incapacitated him for further field service.
Ewell was given command of the Department of Henrico, and subsequently of the entire defenses of Richmond.
After the evacuation of the city, which he has been wrongfully blamed for firing unnecessarily, Ewell, with a decimated corps, was surrounded and captured at Sailor's Creek and imprisoned for almost four months at Fort Warren.
On his release, he removed to his farm near Spring Hill, Maury County, Tennessee, where he died of pneumonia in 1872.
Richard Ewell was made major-general for his actions during the war. He led a division under "Stonewall" Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley campaign, defeating Banks at Winchester and Frémont at Cross Keys. Richard was prominent in the Seven Days’ battles before Richmond, at Cedar Mountain, and in the operations about Manassas Junction.
Richard Stoddert Ewell was a communicant at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Columbia.
Richard Stoddert Ewell was a strong unionist.
Ewell was the president of the Maury County Agricultural Society.
Ewell was an able, enterprising, and energetic officer, given to fighting upon the smallest provocation - it was said that to him war meant to fight and fight meant to kill - and akin to Jackson in the quickness and ardor of his strokes.
His tenderness and humanity were, to those who knew him, no less marked; and his many eccentricities of speech or conduct, his temper, his nervousness and absentmindedness but endeared him the more to his men, who knew at first hand his valor, gentle bearing, and high sense of honor.
Under Jackson's influence, it is said, however, he changed remarkably the habits which he had acquired on the plains, and before the war ended revealed a spirit of genuine piety and religious devotion.
Physical Characteristics: Richard Ewell had bright, prominent eyes, a bomb-shaped, bald head, and a nose like that of Francis of Valois gave him a striking resemblance to a woodcock.
Quotes from others about the person
"Rather short at 5 feet 8 inches, he had just a fringe of brown hair on an otherwise bald, bomb-shaped head. Bright, bulging eyes protruded above a prominent nose, creating an effect which many likened to a bird - an eagle, some said, or a woodcock - especially when he let his head droop toward one shoulder, as he often did, and uttered strange speeches in his shrill, twittering lisp. He had a habit of muttering odd remarks in the middle of normal conversation, such as "Now why do you suppose President Davis made me a major general anyway?" He could be spectacularly, blisteringly profane. He was so nervous and fidgety he could not sleep in a normal position and spent nights curled around a camp stool. He had convinced himself that he had some mysterious internal "disease," and so subsisted almost entirely on frumenty, a dish of hulled wheat boiled in milk and sweetened with sugar. A "compound of anomalies" was how one friend summed him up. He was the reigning eccentric of the Army of Northern Virginia, and his men, who knew at first hand his bravery and generosity of spirit, loved him all the more for it." - Larry Tagg,
Richard Ewell had married, about the close of the war, his cousin and childhood playmate, then a widow, Leczinska Campbell Brown, daughter of Judge Campbell of Tennessee, one-time minister to Russia. They had no children.
