danger, Kemper rose in his stirrups to urge his men forwards, shouting, "There are the guns, boys, go for them!" This act of bravado made Kemper an obvious target, and he was wounded by a bullet in the abdomen and thigh before being captured by U.S. soldiers. However, he was rescued shortly after that by Sgt. Leigh Blanton of the First Virginia Infantry Regiment and carried back to the Confederate lines on Seminary Ridge. General Lee encountered Kemper being carried on a stretcher and inquired about the seriousness of his wound, which Kemper said he thought was mortal. He requested that Lee "do full justice to this division for its work today." During the Confederate Army's retreat from Gettysburg, Kemper was again captured by U.S. forces. He was exchanged (for Charles K. Graham) on September 19, 1863. For the rest of the war, he was too ill to serve in combat and commanded the Reserve Forces of Virginia instead. He was promoted to major general on September 19, 1864. Postbellum career Kemper was paroled in May 1865. Since his previous house had been destroyed in a raid led by U.S. Army officer George Armstrong Custer, his mother-in-law purchased a house for the family in Madison County. Kemper then resumed his legal career. However, the bullet that had wounded him at Gettysburg had lodged close to a major artery and could not be removed without risking his life, so he suffered groin pain for the rest of his life. Nonetheless, he tried to attract northern capital to rebuild the devastated local economy. He and former classmate and Confederate general John D. Imboden also maintained a general legal practice, which included much bankruptcy law. Beginning in 1867, Kemper helped found Virginia's Conservative Party, initially to oppose the new state constitution adopted by a convention chaired by John Underwood (who allied with the Radical Republican faction and opposed allowing former Confederates the vote, among other measures). In 1869 Kemper allied with another former Confederate general turned railroad entrepreneur William Mahone to elect Gilbert C. Walker to the Virginia House of Delegates. After his wife Bella died in September 1870 of complications from the birth of their seventh child, Kemper's political activities increased. Distraught from the loss, he no longer slept in the house they had shared but in his law office. Kemper ran for Congress in the 7th Congressional District (after the redistricting