Eppa Hunton II (September 24, 1822 – October 11, 1908) was a Virginia lawyer and soldier who rose to become a brigadier general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War.

The Brent family had moved across the Potomac River from Maryland before Bacon's Rebellion and by the time of the Revolutionary War were important planters and lawyers in Stafford County, Virginia and western area's of the Northern Neck proprietary (and the only prominent somewhat Catholic family in Virginia, with Robert Brent becoming the first mayor of the District of Columbia).

[3] The elder Eppa Hunton appeared likely to have a similar career, becoming the brigade inspector and twice won election to the Virginia House of Delegates, but died unexpectedly young in Lancaster in 1830.

This left his widow to raise nine young children (two others having died as infants), and the Prince William plantation was sold to pay debts.

Hunton taught the five sons of John Webb Tyler, who in turn helped him to study law and become admitted to the Virginia bar in 1843.

Her family could trace their ancestry to Judge Benjamin Waller of Williamsburg, and her father had been a successful merchant in Tappahannock before moving to Prince William County and running a plantation called "Hartford" until he died in 1840, leaving his widow with young children.

In February 1861, Prince William County voters elected Hunton, an avowed secessionist, as their delegate to the Virginia Secession Convention, as he handily defeated a Unionist candidate, Allen Howison.

It was then again assigned to protect Leesburg, Virginia, the seat of Loudoun County and an important crossroads for trade across the Potomac River as well as across the Blue Ridge Mountains.

[11] In October his regiment was part of Nathan G. Evans' brigade near Leesburg, where the temporarily recovered Hunton led his command against a Union force at Ball's Bluff, driving it into the Potomac River.

[15] Promoted to brigade command late because of his ongoing health issues, Hunton was assigned to Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's corps, Maj. Gen. George Pickett's division, and the Army of Northern Virginia.

He and a dozen other former senior officers were in New Jersey en route to Massachusetts when they learned of President Lincoln's assassination and noted the Union officers refused to succumb to mob cries of "hang them" at every station, although he also took umbrage at his companion General Ewell's proposed resolution of the prisoners denying any complicity in the assassination.

While a prisoner of war, Hunton thought of his lawbooks, as well as worried that his wife and children were penniless in Lynchburg, especially since he had invested all his savings in now-worthless Virginia State Bonds.

[16] After the war Hunton resumed his former law practice in northern Virginia, initially in Prince William County as well as Fauquier and Loudoun, but by year's end moved his family to Warrenton, where he bought a house in 1867.

[17] As Hunton's career restarted, he also returned to politics, opposing Congressional Reconstruction and particularly disabilities which the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1868 sought to place on former Confederates.

Blackburn of Kentucky to improve governance of the federal city, both securing passage of a new 3-commissioner system as well as payment of tax arrearages by corporations and others seeking favors from his committee.

Meanwhile, Hunton was the only southerner appointed to the 15-member Electoral Commission created by an act of Congress in 1877 to decide the contests in various states in the presidential election of 1876.

However, he announced that would be his final term in Congress, and declined renomination in 1880, instead resuming his private legal practice, perhaps in part because he was supporting the family of his brother James, who had died in 1877 (including paying for the education of his niece Bessie Marye Hunton) and his son Eppa Hunton Jr. also graduated from the University of Virginia and his father brought him into the legal practice.

However, he was deeply disappointed in President Grover Cleveland, who although a fellow Democrat, undercut and divided the party concerning the tariff, free silver, and other issues.

Charles W. Buttz, a lobbyist and claim agent originally from North Dakota, but living in Washington, D.C. at the time, went to Hunton's house in Warrenton during the Senator's absence.

Buttz told Hunton's son, Eppa III, that he would pay him a contingent fee of $25,000 if he would, by presenting arguments as to the pending tariff bill, induce his father to vote against it.

Excerpts from the Senate investigating committee on this issue follow: This offer was declined at once and peremptorily by Eppa Hunton [III], as set forth in his testimony, and the whole matter was communicated by him to his father.

According to the university, the award is "presented annually to a third-year student who has demonstrated unusual aptitude in litigation courses and shown a keen awareness and understanding of the lawyer's ethical and professional responsibility."

[24] His home in Warrenton, Brentmoor is a historic site, although perhaps now better known for its links to its builder Judge Edward M. Spilman or for its postwar occupant (and Hunton's predecessor as owner) Confederate Colonel (and Virginia lawyer) John Singleton Mosby.