John Edward Hopkins was born around 1841 in Loudoun County, Virginia, to Philip and Joanna Hopkins. His father was a farmer who owned $3,500 of real estate and $8,000 of personal property by 1860. Hopkins grew up and attended school in Loudoun County. By the early 1860s, he was working as a clerk in Alexandria, Virginia.

 

He enlisted in the Confederate army in April 1861, and he mustered in as a private in the Peaked Mountain Grays. According to his service records, he was 5 feet, 10 inches tall, with brown hair and grey eyes. The company became part of the 10^th Virginia Infantry, and Hopkins received a promotion to 2^nd lieutenant. The regiment took part in the First Battle of Manassas. In the spring of 1862, he joined O’Ferrall’s Virginia Cavalry Battalion. He took part in the Battle of Gettysburg and the Battle of Monocacy.

 

In November 1864, he became a private in the 43^rd Virginia Cavalry Battalion (Mosby’s Rangers). Union forces captured him near Hopewell Gap, Virginia, on December 21, 1864, and he remained in prison until June 13, 1865.

 

Hopkins settled in Stonewall, Virginia, after the war, and he earned a living as a “vineyardist.” By 1870, he owned $1,500 of personal property. He married Frances Ellen Rice on December 20, 1871, and they had at least nine children: Mattie, born around 1872; Nannie, born around 1874; Mary, born around 1876; Sadie, born around 1878; Virginia, born around 1880; Lula, born around 1881; Bertie, born around 1884; Eva, born around 1886; Elizabeth, born around 1888. They lived in Lee, Virginia, and Hopkins worked as a farmer. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Lee on January 10, 1923.

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