Abraham Buford II Brigadier General Abraham " Abe " Buford II ( January 18 , 1820 – June 9 , 1884 ) was a soldier and Thoroughbred horse breeder . Born in Woodford County , Kentucky , his origins were a Huguenot family named Beaufort who fled persecution in France and settled in England before emigrating to America in 1635 . Abraham Buford was the son of Frances W . Kirtley and her husband , William B . Buford ( 1781 – 1848 ) . He was named for his great - uncle Abraham who was a Continental Army officer during the American Revolutionary War . His cousins , John and Napoleon Bonaparte Buford , who grew up nearby , were Generals in the Union Army during the American Civil War Military career . Commonly known as Abe Buford , he studied at Centre College before entering the United States Military Academy at West Point , New York in 1837 . Graduating in 1841 , as a second - lieutenant with the First dragoons from 1842 through 1846 , he did Frontier duty in the Kansas Territory and the Indian Territory . He then served in the Mexican – American War in which he was appointed Brevet Captain for bravery at the Battle of Buena Vista . When that war ended , he was dispatched for further duty on the Frontier and in 1848 was part of the Santa Fe Trail expedition . In 1849 , Buford escorted the mail from Santa Fe , New Mexico to the east , using , in part , the new Cherokee Trail . He was then sent to the Army ' s cavalry school in Carlisle , Pennsylvania but in October 1854 he resigned his commission and returned to his native Kentucky where his family owned a farm property near Versailles in his native Woodford County . Following the outbreak of the American Civil War , like his native State , Buford tried to stay out of the Civil War and succeeded in doing so for well over a year . In September 1862 , during Confederate General Braxton Bragg ' s invasion of Kentucky , Buford joined the Confederate States Army . He helped raise and took command of a Kentucky brigade and on September 2 , 1862 was commissioned Brigadier General . Among his missions , Buford covered General Braxton Bragg ' s retreat from Kentucky , was part of the Vicksburg Campaign under General Loring , fought in the Battle of Champion Hill , a raid on Paducah , KY on 25 March 1864 under Maj . Gen . N . B . Forrest , the Battle of Brice ' s Crossroads and was wounded on December 24 , 1864 at Richland Creek during the Battle of Nashville when he covered Lt . Gen . Hood ' s retreat following the Confederate Army ' s loss . In February , 1865 , he commanded a cavalry division in Alabama under the command of Lieutenant General Nathan Forrest until the surrender at Selma following Wilson ' s Raid . When the war ended in 1865 , Brigadier General Buford returned to his farm in Kentucky where he became a leading breeder of Thoroughbreds . Bosque Bonita Farm . Abe Buford named his Woodford County farm Bosque Bonita ( " Beautiful Woods " ) , a place the " New York Times " would call the " most princely residence in the Bluegrass region . " It was here that slave Billy Walker was born in 1860 and who went on to ride Baden - Baden to victory in the 1877 Kentucky Derby . Beginning in 1852 , the stallion Sovereign stood at stud at Bosque Bonita , developing into an influential sire . The next year , Abe Buford was part of a syndicate with Richard Ten Broeck , Captain Willa Viley and Junius R . Ward , who bought the then three - year - old colt , Lexington . In 1858 Lexington was sold to Robert A . Alexander of Woodburn Stud for $ 15 , 000 in 1858 , reportedly the then highest price ever paid for an American horse . Buford also owned , raced , or bred a number of successful horses including Nellie Gray , Enquirer , Crossland , and Versailles . Mannie Gray , whom " Thoroughbred Heritage " calls " one of the most influential American mares in breeding history , " was owned and raced by Buford who sold her to fellow Kentuckian , Major Barak Thomas of Dixiana Farm . In 1866 , Leamington ' s new owner , Canadian Roderick Cameron , sent him to stand at stud at Bosque Bonita for the season . Although Leamington covered just thirteen mares that year , he produced an outstanding crop of foals , including , Anna Mace , Enquirer , Longfellow , Lynchburg , Lyttleton , and Miss Alice . In 1875 , General George Custer came to Bosque Bonita Farm to buy cavalry remounts before the Battle of Little Big Horn . Later owners . Since Abe Buford ' s time , Bosque Bonita has been owned by such prominent horsemen as John H . Morris who had trained horses for George J . Long ' s Bashford Manor Stable for many years and who operated Woodburn Stud on a long - term lease beginning in 1905 . John Morris still owned Bosque Bonita in the 1940s . Fritz Hawn bought Bosque Bonita Farm in the fall of 1977 from Robert A . Alexander . Two years later he sold the property to William Stamps Farish III who renamed it Lane ' s End Farm . Some of the famous horses who stood at the farm in recent times and are buried there include Bally Ache ( 1957 – 1960 ) , Sovereign Dancer ( 1975 – 1994 ) , and Fappiano ( 1977 – 1990 ) . Family tragedies . During the 1870s Abe Buford suffered a series of financial reversals that forced him into bankruptcy with the resulting loss of Bosque Bonita Farm to his creditors . In addition , he suffered a devastating personal loss when his only son , William A . Buford , died at age twenty - three in 1872 . He lost his wife Amanda Harris Buford in 1879 and on March 26 of that same year , his brother , Colonel Thomas Buford of Henry County , Kentucky , shot and killed Judge John Milton Elliott in Frankfort , Kentucky . Tom Buford surrendered to police and was jailed pending trial . Abe Buford came to his brother ' s aid and spent a great deal of money on legal fees for his defense . On appeal of a guilty verdict , Thomas Buford would eventually be found not guilty by reason of insanity and was sent to the Anchorage , Kentucky psychiatric hospital . In his final years , Abe Buford made a living working for racing newspapers . In 1884 , following his brother Thomas ' s much publicized escape from the insane asylum with some newspaper headlines saying he was " thirsting for blood " , Abe Buford sought some peace and went to visit his nephew Benjamin T . Buford in Danville , Indiana . There , in his bedroom , a very depressed Abraham Buford took his own life . His remains were sent back to Kentucky where he was buried in the Lexington Cemetery . The Brigadier General Abraham Buford Relief was erected November 21 , 1911 on South Confederate Avenue in Vicksburg , Mississippi .