SUMMARY Richard S. Ewell was a Confederate lieutenant general during the American Civil War (1861–1865) who apprenticed under Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson during the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862, and later took charge of the Army of Northern Virginia‘s Second Corps after Jackson’s death. Nicknamed “Old Bald Head” and said to be “blisteringly profane,” Ewell courted controversy with his decision not to attack Cemetery Hill on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg (1863). Some historians have claimed that Ewell’s inaction in this episode cost the Confederates the battle, although Robert E. Lee‘s orders on the matter were vague and it is unclear whether Ewell’s men could have carried the day in any case.