the Confederate army winter encampment. The Wilderness In the Wilderness, the start of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's 1864 Overland Campaign, Ramseur was once again kept in reserve. On May 7, 1864, his brigade was called forward and smashed into Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside's IX Corps, which was attempting to outflank Ramseur's corps. Both Lee and corps commander Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell wrote in admiration of his gallant attack, which drove Burnside's troops back over a half mile. At Spotsylvania Court House, his brigade counterattacked the II Corps of Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock after its assault on the Mule Shoe at the "Bloody Angle". Desperate hand-to-hand fighting, some of the most intense of the war, lasted for over 20 hours. He was wounded again in this attack, shot from his horse in the right arm, but refused to leave the field. Major General Ramseur assumed command of Jubal A. Early's division when that general took over from Ewell after Spotsylvania. He received a temporary promotion to major general on June 1, 1864, becoming at 27 the youngest West Point graduate to ever be promoted to major general in the Confederate Army. He fought at Cold Harbor and was the first division to intercept Grant before he could capture Petersburg. 1864 Valley Campaign In June 1864, Ramseur and the rest of Early's corps was sent by Lee to the Shenandoah Valley to draw Union forces away from Petersburg, in the Valley Campaigns of 1864. They conducted a long and successful raid down the Valley, into Maryland, and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C., before turning back. Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan was sent by Grant to drive Early from the Valley. On September 19, 1864, Sheridan attacked the Confederates at the Battle of Opequon, also known as the Third Battle of Winchester. Ramseur's division was routed by a strong Union assault near Stephenson's Depot; Ramseur allegedly wept openly and immaturely blamed his men for the retreat. His colleague Rodes was mortally wounded. Cedar Creek and death In a surprise attack a month later, Early routed two thirds of the Union army at the Battle of Cedar Creek on October 19, but his troops were hungry and exhausted and fell out of their ranks to pillage the Union camp; Ramseur managed to corral a few hundred soldiers out of his division and stood with them in the center of the line