Robert Ransom , Jr . Robert Ransom , Jr . ( February 12 , 1828 – January 14 , 1892 ) was a major general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War . His brother Matt W . Ransom was also a Confederate general officer and U . S . Senator . Early life . Robert Ransom , Jr . was born in Warren County , North Carolina to Robert Ransom , Sr . and Priscilla Whitaker Ransom . He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1850 . Ransom was assigned to the 1st dragoons on July 1 , 1850 . He attended the cavalry school at Carlisle Barracks in Carlisle , Pennsylvania in 1850 - 51 / On October 9 , 1851 he was promoted to Second Lieutenant . Ransom then performed frontier service in New Mexico from 1851 - 54 . Ransom married Minnie Huntt in 1854 . He was assistant instructor of cavalry tactics at West Point from 1854 - 55 . In 1855 he was promoted to First Lieutenant and transferred to the 1st U . S . Cavalry . Ransom served as adjutant of the regiment at Fort Leavenworth , Kansas from 1855 – 1857 , where he took part in the Sioux expedition and in policing the Kansas disturbances . The next few years saw him in the recruiting service and frontier duty in Arkansas , Kansas and Colorado . He was also promoted to Captain . He resigned his commission on January 31 , 1861 , with the discussion of secession and the sectional crisis that led to the Civil War . Civil War . He was initially appointed as a captain in the North Carolina cavalry in early 1861 and served with his regiment in Northern Virginia , where he fought in several minor skirmishes . On October 13 , 1861 , he was appointed to the colonelcy of the 1st North Carolina Cavalry . He commanded the Confederate forces at the skirmish around Vienna on November 26 , 1861 , and was afterward returned to North Carolina . On March 1 , 1862 , Ransom was promoted to brigadier general and fought on the Peninsula attached to Huger ' s Division . He led his North Carolina brigade in the September 1862 invasion of Maryland and participated in the capture of Harpers Ferry and the Battle of Antietam . On November 7 , he was placed in temporary command of the division and led it through the Battle of Fredericksburg , where Ransom ' s division had successfully defended Marye ' s Heights against the attacking Federals . In January 1863 , Ransom and his brigade were sent back to North Carolina . In May he was promoted to major general and performed duty around Richmond , western Virginia , and eastern Tennessee . In May 1864 he led a division under General P . G . T . Beauregard in the defense of Drewry ' s Bluff against Union General Benjamin Butler . He was sent to command the cavalry in the Shenandoah Valley in the summer , under the command of General Jubal A . Early , where he participated in the battles of Monocacy and Fort Stevens . He was relieved of command in August 1864 due to illness and never returned to front line service . He ended the war serving on military courts at administrative posts in Kentucky and at Charleston , South Carolina , before surrendering to Federal troops on May 2 , 1865 . Postbellum career . Following the war , he was an express agent and city marshal at Wilmington , North Carolina , and then was a farmer until 1878 . He then was a civil engineer in charge of Federal river and harbor works at New Bern , North Carolina . In 1881 , his first wife died . The couple had nine children . In 1884 , he married Katherine DeWitt Lumpkin and they had three children . Ransom died in New Bern in 1892 .