As the nation moved towards Civil War, Ewell had generally pro-Union sentiments, but when his home state of Virginia seceded, Ewell resigned his U.S. Army commission on May 7, 1861, to join the Virginia Provisional Army. He was appointed a colonel of cavalry on May 9 and was the first officer of field grade wounded in the war, at a May 31 skirmish at Fairfax Court House where he was hit in the shoulder. He was promoted to brigadier general in the Confederate States Army on June 17 and commanded a brigade in the (Confederate) Army of the Potomac at the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas), but saw little action.