at the center of the Confederate line, suffering heavy casualties. Rodes was lightly wounded by shell fragments. In the Battle of Chancellorsville, Rodes was a division commander in Stonewall Jackson's corps. He was the first division-level commander in Lee's army who had not graduated from West Point. Rodes led Jackson's devastating flank attack against the Union XI Corps on May 2, 1863. He was temporarily placed in command of the corps that night when Jackson was mortally wounded and Maj. Gen. A.P. Hill was also wounded. Hill immediately summoned the more senior officer Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, and minutes later Rodes graciously ceded his battlefield command to him. Jackson on his deathbed recommended that Rodes be promoted to major general and this promotion be back-dated to be effective May 2. When Lee reorganized the Army of Northern Virginia to compensate for the loss of Jackson, Rodes joined the Second Corps under Richard Ewell. In the Battle of Gettysburg, on July 1, 1863, Rodes led the assault from Oak Hill against the right flank of the Union I Corps. Although his initial attacks were poorly coordinated and casualties high, he eventually routed the division of Maj. Gen. John C. Robinson and drove it back through the town. His division sat idle for the remaining two days of the battle. Rodes continued to fight with Ewell's corps through the 1864 Overland Campaign of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. Ewell was replaced by Lt. Gen. Jubal Early, and the corps was sent by Lee to the Shenandoah Valley to draw Union forces away from Petersburg, in the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Early 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 once and for all. On September 19, 1864, Sheridan attacked the Confederates at the Battle of Opequon, also known as the Third Battle of Winchester. Several wives of Confederate officers were chased from town during the attack and Rodes managed to save Maj. Gen. John B. Gordon's wife from capture. Rodes and Gordon prepared to attack Sheridan's forces when Rodes was struck in the back of his head by a Union shell fragment. He died on the field outside Winchester. Rodes was mourned by the Confederacy as a promising, brave, and aggressive officer killed before he