How humanity triumphed over an actual lottery of death during the Civil War [Video]

In the fall of 1864, both Union and Confederate forces in the Shenandoah Valley found themselves trapped in a cycle of violence and retribution deaths. The Civil War is filled with nuance, tragedy and unexpected sacrifice and triumphs of the human spirit. Two such events helped end this no-win bloody cycle.        

In the middle of October 1864, a Union soldier fitted a leather strap around the neck of former Baptist divinity student Private Albert Gallatin Willis. The 20-year-old Confederate, a member of Mosby’s Rangers, courageously prayed as he faced his executioners during his final seconds left on earth. 

As a member of Company C of the 43rd Battalion or Mosby’s Rangers, Willis survived multiple skirmishes and harrowing narrow escapes. He was granted a furlough and traveling south toward his home in Culpeper, Virginia, with another Ranger when his horse went lame outside a patchwork of houses in present-day Ben Venue.  

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