George Henry Thomas | |
|---|---|
Thomasc. 1862–65 | |
| Nicknames | "Rock of Chickamauga," "Sledge of Nashville," "Slow Trot Thomas," "Old Slow Trot," "Pap" |
| Born | (1816-07-31)July 31, 1816 |
| Died | March 28, 1870(1870-03-28) (aged 53) San Francisco, California, US |
| Buried | |
| Allegiance | United States |
| Branch | United States Army (Union Army) |
| Service years | 1840–1870 |
| Rank | Major general |
| Commands | XIV Corps Army of the Cumberland Military Division of the Pacific |
| Conflicts | |
| Spouses | Frances Lucretia Kellogg, m. 1852 |
| Signature | |
George Henry Thomas (July 31, 1816 – March 28, 1870) was an Americangeneral in theUnion Army during theAmerican Civil War and one of the principal commanders in theWestern Theater.
Thomas served in theMexican–American War, and despite being aVirginian whose home state would join theConfederate States of America during the Civil War, he was aSouthern Unionist who chose to remain in theU.S. Army. Thomas won one of the first Union victories in the war, atMill Springs inKentucky, and served in important subordinate commands atPerryville andStones River. His stout defense at theBattle of Chickamauga in 1863 saved the Union Army from being completely routed, earning him his most famous nickname, "the Rock of Chickamauga." He followed soon after with a dramatic breakthrough onMissionary Ridge in theBattle of Chattanooga. In theFranklin–Nashville Campaign of 1864, he achieved one of the most decisive victories of the war, destroying the army ofConfederate GeneralJohn Bell Hood, his former student at West Point, at theBattle of Nashville.
Thomas had a successful record in the Civil War, but he failed to achieve the historical acclaim of some of his contemporaries, such asUlysses S. Grant andWilliam T. Sherman. He developed a reputation as a slow, deliberate general. In an environment rife with jealousy and avarice for promotion and recognition, Thomas stood out as an oddball for occasionally refusing promotions to positions he thought he was still incapable of fulfilling. Conversely, he sometimes regretted his refusals or found it offensive that he was passed over for promotion. After the war, he did not write memoirs to advance his legacy and died only five years after the war ended.
Thomas was born atNewsom's Depot,Southampton County, Virginia, five miles (8 km) from theNorth Carolina border.[1] His father, John Thomas, of Welsh[2] descent, and his mother, Elizabeth Rochelle Thomas, a descendant of FrenchHuguenot immigrants, had six children. George had three sisters and two brothers.[3] The family led an upper-class plantation lifestyle. By 1829, they owned 685 acres (2.77 km2) and 15 slaves. John died in a farm accident when George was 13, leaving the family in financial difficulties.[4] George Thomas, his sisters, and his widowed mother were forced to flee from their home and hide in the nearby woods duringNat Turner's1831 slave rebellion.[5] Benson Bobrick has suggested that while some repressive acts were enforced following the crushing of the revolt, Thomas took the lesson another way, seeing that slavery was so vile an institution that it had forced the slaves to act in violence. This was a major event in the formation of his views on slavery; that the idea of the contented slave in the care of a benevolent overlord was a sentimental myth.[6]Christopher Einolf, in contrast wrote "For George Thomas, the view that slavery was needed as a way of controlling blacks was supported by his personal experience of Nat Turner's Rebellion. ... Thomas left no written record of his opinion on slavery, but the fact that he owned slaves during much of his life indicates that he was not opposed to it."[7] A traditional story is that Thomas taught as many as 15 of his family's slaves to read, violating a Virginia law that prohibited this,[8] and despite the wishes of his father.[9]
Thomas was appointed to theUnited States Military Academy atWest Point, New York, in 1836 by CongressmanJohn Y. Mason, who warned Thomas that no nominee from his district had ever graduated successfully. Entering at age 20, Thomas was known to his fellow cadets as "Old Tom," and he became instant friends with his roommates,William T. Sherman andStewart Van Vliet. He made steady academic progress, was appointed a cadet officer in his second year, and graduated 12th in a class of 42 in 1840.[10] He was appointed asecond lieutenant in Company D,3rd U.S. Artillery.[11]
Thomas's first assignment with his artillery regiment began in late 1840 at the primitive outpost ofFort Lauderdale, Florida, in theSeminole Wars, where his troops performed infantry duty. He led them in successful patrols and was appointed abrevetfirst lieutenant on November 6, 1841.[12] From 1842 until 1845, he served in posts atNew Orleans,Fort Moultrie inCharleston Harbor, andFort McHenry inBaltimore. With theMexican–American War looming, his regiment was ordered to Texas in June 1845.[13]
In Mexico, Thomas led a gun crew with distinction at the battles ofFort Brown,Resaca de la Palma,Monterrey, andBuena Vista, receiving two more brevet promotions.[14] At Buena Vista, Gen.Zachary Taylor reported that "the services of the light artillery, always conspicuous, were more than unusually distinguished" during the battle.Brig. Gen.John E. Wool wrote about Thomas and another officer that "without our artillery we would not have maintained our position a single hour." Thomas's battery commander wrote that Thomas's "coolness and firmness contributed not a little to the success of the day. Lieutenant Thomas more than sustained the reputation he has long enjoyed in his regiment as an accurate and scientific artillerist."[15] During the war, Thomas served closely with an artillery officer who would be a principal antagonist in the Civil War—CaptainBraxton Bragg.[16]
Thomas was reassigned to Florida in 1849–50. In 1851, he returned to West Point as a cavalry and artillery instructor, where he established a close professional and personal relationship with another Virginia officer,Lt. Col.Robert E. Lee, the academy superintendent. His appointment there was based in part on a recommendation from Braxton Bragg. Concerned about the poor condition of the academy's elderly horses, Thomas moderated the tendency of cadets to overwork them during cavalry drills and became known as "Slow Trot Thomas". Two of Thomas's students who received his recommendation for assignment to the cavalry,J.E.B. Stuart andFitzhugh Lee, became prominent Confederate cavalry generals. Another Civil War connection was a cadet expelled for disciplinary reasons on Thomas's recommendation,John Schofield, who would excoriate Thomas in postbellum writings about his service as a corps commander under Thomas in theFranklin-Nashville Campaign. On November 17, 1852, Thomas married Frances Lucretia Kellogg, age 31, fromTroy, New York. The couple remained at West Point until 1854. Thomas was promoted tocaptain on December 24, 1853.[17]
In the spring of 1854, Thomas's artillery regiment was transferred to California and he led two companies to San Francisco via theIsthmus of Panama, and then on a grueling overland march toFort Yuma. On May 12, 1855, Thomas was appointed amajor of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry (later re-designated the5th U.S. Cavalry) byJefferson Davis, thenSecretary of War. Once again, Braxton Bragg had provided a recommendation for Thomas's advancement. There was a suspicion as the Civil War drew closer that Davis had been assembling and training a combat unit of elite U.S. Army officers who harbored Southern sympathies, and Thomas's appointment to this regiment implied that his colleagues assumed he would support his native state of Virginia in a future conflict.[18] Thomas resumed his close ties with the second-in-command of the regiment, Robert E. Lee, and the two officers traveled extensively together on detached service for court-martial duty. In October 1857, Major Thomas assumed acting command of the cavalry regiment, an assignment he would retain for 2½ years. On August 26, 1860, during a clash with aComanche warrior, Thomas was wounded by an arrow passing through the flesh near his chin area and sticking into his chest at Clear Fork,Brazos River,Texas. Thomas pulled the arrow out and, after a surgeon dressed the wound, continued to lead the expedition. This was the only combat wound that Thomas suffered throughout his long military career.[19]
In November 1860, Thomas requested a one-year leave of absence. His antebellum career had been distinguished and productive, and he was one of the rare officers with field experience in all three combat arms—infantry, cavalry, and artillery. On his way home to southern Virginia, he suffered a mishap inLynchburg, Virginia, falling from a train platform and severely injuring his back. This accident led him to contemplate leaving military service and caused him pain for the rest of his life. Continuing to New York to visit with his wife's family, Thomas stopped in Washington, D.C., and conferred with general-in-chiefWinfield Scott, advising Scott that Maj. Gen.David E. Twiggs, the commander of the Department of Texas, harboredsecessionist sympathies and could not be trusted in his post.[20] Twiggs did indeed surrender his entire command to Confederate authorities shortly after Texas seceded, and later served in the Confederate military.[21]
At the outbreak of the Civil War, 19 of the 36 officers in the 2nd U.S. Cavalry resigned, including three of Thomas's superiors—Albert Sidney Johnston,Robert E. Lee, andWilliam J. Hardee.[22] ManySouthern-born officers were torn between loyalty to their states and loyalty to their country. Thomas struggled with the decision but opted to remain with the United States. His Northern-born wife probably helped influence his decision. In response, his family turned his picture against the wall, destroyed his letters, and never spoke to him again. During the economic hard times in the South after the war, Thomas sent some money to his sisters, who angrily refused to accept it, declaring they had no brother.[23]
Nevertheless, Thomas stayed in the Union Army with some degree of suspicion surrounding him, despite his action concerning Twiggs. On January 18, 1861, a few months beforeFort Sumter, he had applied for a job as the commandant of cadets at theVirginia Military Institute.[24] Any real tendency to the secessionist cause, however, could be refuted when he turned downVirginia GovernorJohn Letcher's offer to become chief ofordnance for the Virginia Provisional Army.[25] On June 18, his former student and fellow Virginian, Confederate Col.J.E.B. Stuart, wrote to his wife, "Old George H. Thomas is in command of the cavalry of the enemy. I would like to hang,hang him as a traitor to his native state."[26]Nevertheless, as the Civil War carried on, he won the affection of Union soldiers serving under him as a "soldier's soldier", who took to affectionately referring to Thomas as "Pap Thomas".[27]
Thomas was promoted in rapid succession to belieutenant colonel (on April 25, 1861, replacing Robert E. Lee) andcolonel (May 3, replacing Albert Sidney Johnston) in theregular army, andbrigadier general of volunteers (August 17).[28] In theFirst Bull Run Campaign, he commanded a brigade underMaj. Gen.Robert Patterson in theShenandoah Valley,[29] but all of his subsequent assignments were in the Western Theater. Reporting to Maj. Gen.Robert Anderson inKentucky, Thomas was assigned to train recruits and command an independent force at Camp Dick Robinson in Garrard County, boosting the Union presence in central Kentucky and demonstrating federal resolve to Confederate forces gathering at Cumberland Gap and Barbourville in eastern Kentucky. Thomas led this command, which eventually became the First Division of the Army of the Ohio, to victory atMill Springs, defeating Confederate Brig. Gens.George B. Crittenden andFelix Zollicoffer, and gaining the first important Union victory in the war. This victory significantly diminished Confederate strength in eastern Kentucky and lifted Union morale nationally.[30]
On December 2, 1861, Brig. Gen. Thomas was assigned to command the 1st Division of Maj. Gen.Don Carlos Buell'sArmy of the Ohio. He missed theBattle of Shiloh (April 7, 1862), arriving after the fighting had ceased. The victor at Shiloh, Maj. Gen.Ulysses S. Grant, came under severe criticism for the bloody battle due to the surprise and lack of preparations and his superior, Maj. Gen.Henry W. Halleck, reorganized his Department of the Mississippi to ease Grant out of direct field command. The three armies in the department were divided and recombined into three "wings". Thomas, promoted to major general effective April 25, 1862, was given command of the Right Wing, consisting of four divisions from Grant's formerArmy of the Tennessee and one from the Army of the Ohio. Thomas successfully led this force in thesiege of Corinth. On June 10, Grant returned to command of the original Army of the Tennessee.

Thomas resumed service underDon Carlos Buell. During Confederate GeneralBraxton Bragg's invasion of Kentucky in the fall of 1862, the Union high command became nervous about Buell's cautious tendencies and offered command of the Army of the Ohio to Thomas, who refused, as Buell's plans were too far advanced. Thomas served as Buell's second-in-command at theBattle of Perryville, but his wing of the army did not hear the fighting engaged in by the other flank. Although tactically inconclusive, the battle halted Bragg's invasion of Kentucky as he voluntarily withdrew to Tennessee. Again frustrated with Buell's ineffective pursuit of Bragg, the government replaced him with Maj. Gen.William Rosecrans. Thomas wrote on October 30, 1862, a letter of protest to Secretary Stanton, because Rosecrans had been junior to him, but Stanton wrote back on November 15, telling him that this was not the case (Rosecrans had in fact been his junior, but his commission as major general had been backdated to make him senior to Thomas) and reminding him of his earlier refusal to accept command; Thomas demurred and withdrew his protest.[31]

Fighting under Rosecrans, commanding the"Center" wing of the newly renamedArmy of the Cumberland, Thomas gave an impressive performance at theBattle of Stones River, holding the center of the retreating Union line and once again preventing a victory by Bragg. He was in charge of the most important part of the maneuvering fromDecherd toChattanooga during theTullahoma Campaign (June 22 – July 3, 1863) and the crossing of theTennessee River. At theBattle of Chickamauga on September 19, 1863, now commanding theXIV Corps, he once again held a desperate position against Bragg's onslaught while the Union line on his right collapsed. Thomas rallied broken and scattered units together on Horseshoe Ridge to prevent a significant Union defeat from becoming a hopeless rout. Future presidentJames Garfield, a field officer for the Army of the Cumberland, visited Thomas during the battle, carrying orders from Rosecrans to retreat; when Thomas said he would have to stay behind to ensure the Army's safety, Garfield told Rosecrans that Thomas was "standing like a rock." After the battle he became widely known by the nickname "The Rock of Chickamauga", representing his determination to hold a vital position against strong odds.[32]

Thomas succeeded Rosecrans in command of theArmy of the Cumberland shortly before theBattles for Chattanooga (November 23–25, 1863), a stunning Union victory that was highlighted by Thomas's troops taking Lookout Mountain on the right and then storming the Confederate line onMissionary Ridge, the next day. When the Army of the Cumberland advanced further than ordered, General Grant, on Orchard Knob asked Thomas, "Who ordered the advance?" Thomas replied, "I don't know. I did not."
During Maj. Gen.William Tecumseh Sherman's advance through Georgia in the spring of 1864, the Army of the Cumberland numbered over 60,000 men, and Thomas's staff did the logistics and engineering for Sherman's entire army group, including developing a novel series ofCumberland pontoons. At theBattle of Peachtree Creek (July 20, 1864), Thomas's defense severely damagedLt. Gen.John B. Hood's army in its first attempt to break the siege of Atlanta.
When Hood broke away from Atlanta in the autumn of 1864, menaced Sherman's long line of communications, and endeavored to force Sherman to follow him, Sherman abandoned his communications and embarked on theMarch to the Sea. Thomas stayed behind to fight Hood in theFranklin-Nashville Campaign. Thomas, with a smaller force, raced with Hood to reach Nashville, where he was to receive reinforcements.[33]
At theBattle of Franklin on November 30, 1864, a large part of Thomas's force, under command of Maj. Gen.John M. Schofield, dealt Hood a strong defeat and held him in check long enough to cover the concentration of Union forces in Nashville. At Nashville, Thomas had to organize his forces, which had been drawn from all parts of the West and which included many raw troops and even quartermaster employees. He declined to attack until his army was ready and the ice covering the ground had melted enough for his men to move. General Grant (now general-in-chief of all Union armies) grew impatient at the delay. Grant sent Maj. Gen.John A. Logan with an order to replace Thomas, and soon afterwards Grant started a journey west from City Point, Virginia to take command in person.[34]

Thomas attacked on December 15, 1864, and theBattle of Nashville effectively destroyed Hood's army in two days of fighting. Thomas sent his wife, Frances Lucretia Kellogg Thomas, the following telegram, the only communication surviving of the Thomases' correspondence: "We have whipped the enemy, taken many prisoners and considerable artillery."
Thomas was appointed a major general in the regular army, with date of rank of his Nashville victory, and received theThanks of Congress:[35]
... to Major-General George H. Thomas and the officers and soldiers under his command for their skill and dauntless courage, by which the rebel army under General Hood was signally defeated and driven from the state of Tennessee.
Thomas may have resented his delayed promotion to major general (which made him junior by date of rank toSheridan); upon receiving the telegram announcing it, he remarked to Surgeon George Cooper: "I suppose it is better late than never, but it is too late to be appreciated. I earned this at Chickamauga.".[36]
Thomas also received another nickname from his victory: "The Sledge of Nashville".[37]
After the end of the Civil War, Thomas commanded the Department of the Cumberland in Kentucky and Tennessee, and at times also West Virginia and parts of Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama, through 1869. During theReconstruction period, Thomas acted to protectfreedmen from white abuses. He set up military commissions to enforce labor contracts since the local courts had either ceased to operate or were biased against blacks. Thomas also used troops to protect places threatened by violence from theKu Klux Klan.[38] In a November 1868 report, Thomas noted efforts made by former Confederatesto paint the Confederacy in a positive light, stating:
[T]he greatest efforts made by the defeated insurgents since the close of the war have been to promulgate the idea that the cause of liberty, justice, humanity, equality, and all the calendar of the virtues of freedom, suffered violence and wrong when the effort for southern independence failed. This is, of course, intended as a species of political cant, whereby the crime of treason might be covered with a counterfeit varnish of patriotism, so that the precipitators of the rebellion might go down in history hand in hand with the defenders of the government, thus wiping out with their own hands their own stains; a species of self-forgiveness amazing in its effrontery, when it is considered that life and property—justly forfeited by the laws of the country, of war, and of nations, through the magnanimity of the government and people—was not exacted from them.
— George Henry Thomas, November 1868.[39]
PresidentAndrew Johnson offered Thomas the rank oflieutenant general—with the intent to eventually replace Grant, aRepublican and future president, with Thomas as general in chief—but the ever-loyal Thomas asked theSenate to withdraw his name for that nomination because he did not want to be party to politics. In 1869 he requested assignment to command theMilitary Division of the Pacific with headquarters at thePresidio of San Francisco. He died there of a stroke on March 28, 1870, while writing an answer to an article criticizing his military career by his wartime rivalJohn Schofield.[35] Sherman, by then general-in-chief, personally conveyed the news to President Grant at theWhite House. None of Thomas's blood relatives attended his funeral as they had never forgiven him for his loyalty to the Union. He was buried in his wife's family plot inOakwood Cemetery, inTroy, New York. His gravestone was sculpted byRobert E. Launitz and comprises a white marblesarcophagus topped by abald eagle.[40]
The veterans' organization for the Army of the Cumberland, throughout its existence, fought to see that he was honored for all he had done.[citation needed] In 1879, they commissioned the equestrian statue of Thomas at Thomas Circle, Washington, D.C.[41]
Thomas was in chief command of only two battles in the Civil War, theBattle of Mill Springs at the beginning and theBattle of Nashville near the end. Both were decisive victories. However, his contributions at the battles of Stones River, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, and Peachtree Creek were decisive. His main legacies lay in his development of modern battlefield doctrine and in his mastery of logistics.[citation needed]
Thomas has generally been held in high esteem by Civil War historians;Bruce Catton andCarl Sandburg wrote glowingly of him, and many[who?] consider Thomas one of the top three Union generals of the war, after Grant andWilliam Tecumseh Sherman. But Thomas never entered the popular consciousness like those men. The general destroyed his private papers, saying he did not want "his life hawked in print for the eyes of the curious." Beginning in the 1870s, many Civil War generals published memoirs, justifying their decisions or re-fighting old battles, but Thomas, who died in 1870, did not publish his own memoirs. In addition, most of his campaigns were in the Western theater of the war, which received less attention both in the press of the day and in contemporary historical accounts.
Grant and Thomas also had a cool relationship, for reasons that are not entirely clear, but are well-attested by contemporaries. It apparently started when Halleck placed Thomas in command of most of Grant's divisions after the Battle of Shiloh. When a rain-soaked Grant arrived at Thomas's headquarters before theChattanooga campaign, Thomas, caught up in other activity, did not provide dry clothes for several minutes until Grant's staffer intervened. Thomas's perceived slowness at Nashville—although necessitated by the weather—drove Grant into a fit of impatience, and Grant nearly replaced Thomas. In hisPersonal Memoirs, Grant minimized Thomas's contributions, particularly during the Franklin-Nashville Campaign, saying his movements were "always so deliberate and so slow, though effective in defence."[42]
Grant did, however, acknowledge that Thomas's eventual success at Nashville obviated all criticism.[citation needed] Sherman, who had been close to Thomas throughout the war, also repeated the accusation after the war that Thomas was "slow", and thisdamning with faint praise tended to affect perceptions of the Rock of Chickamauga up to the present day. Both Sherman and Grant attended Thomas's funeral, and were reported by third parties to have been visibly moved by his passing. Thomas's legendarybay horse, Billy, bore his friend Sherman's name.
Thomas was always on good terms with his commanding officer in the Army of the Cumberland,William Rosecrans. Even after Rosecrans was relieved of command by Grant and replaced by Thomas, he had nothing but praise for him. Upon hearing of Thomas' death, Rosecrans sent a letter to theNational Tribune, stating Thomas' passing was a "National Calamity... Few knew him better than I did, none valued him more."[43]
In 1887, Sherman published an article praising Grant and Thomas, and contrasting them to Robert E. Lee. After noting that Thomas, unlike his fellow Virginian Lee, stood by the Union, Sherman wrote:
During the whole war his services were transcendent, winning the first substantial victory at Mill Springs in Kentucky, January 20th, 1862, participating in all the campaigns of the West in 1862-3-4, and finally, December 16th, 1864 annihilating the army of Hood, which in mid winter had advanced to Nashville to besiege him.[44]
Sherman concluded that Grant and Thomas were "heroes" deserving "monuments like those ofNelson andWellington in London, well worthy to stand side by side with the one which now graces our capitol city of 'George Washington.'"[45]

A fort south ofNewport, Kentucky was named in his honor, and the city ofFort Thomas now stands there and carries his name as well. In 2025, a statue commemorating Thomas was erected in the city, adjacent the fort. A memorial honoring Thomas,Major General George Henry Thomas, can be found in the eponymousThomas Circle in Washington, D.C.[47]
A distinctive engraved portrait of Thomas appeared on U.S. paper money in 1890 and 1891. The bills are called "treasury notes" or "coin notes" and are widely collected today because of their fine, detailed engraving. The $5 Thomas "fancyback" note of 1890, with an estimated 450–600 in existence relative to the 7.2 million printed, ranks as number 90 in the "100 Greatest American Currency Notes" compiled by Bowers and Sundman (2006).[48]
Thomas County, Kansas, established in 1888, is named in his honor. The townships of Thomas County are named after fallen soldiers in the Battle of Chickamauga.[49]Thomas County, Nebraska, is also named after him.[50]
In 1999 a statue of Thomas by sculptorRudy Ayoroa was unveiled inLebanon, Kentucky.[51]
A bust of Thomas is located inGrant's Tomb inManhattan, New York.
Thomas's torn loyalties during the Civil War are briefly discussed in Chapter XIX of MacKinlay Kantor's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "Andersonville" (1955).
A three-quarter length portrait of him, executed by U.S. generalSamuel Woodson Price (1828–1918) in 1869 and gifted by the heirs of General Price, hangs in the stairwell to Special Collections atTransylvania University,Lexington, Kentucky.
A Sons of Union Veterans Camp, Camp No. 19 inLancaster, Pennsylvania, is named in his honor.
He was honored as the namesake of the George Henry Thomas Post Number 5 of theGrand Army of the Republic.[52] A 10-mile road in Southampton County, Virginia, his birthplace, is named General Thomas Highway.
[T]he greatest efforts made by the defeated insurgents since the close of the war have been to promulgate the idea that the cause of liberty, justice, humanity, equality, and all the calendar of the virtues of freedom, suffered violence and wrong when the effort for southern independence failed. This is, of course, intended as a species of political cant, whereby the crime of treason might be covered with a counterfeit varnish of patriotism, so that the precipitators of the rebellion might go down in history hand in hand with the defenders of the government, thus wiping out with their own hands their own stains; a species of self-forgiveness amazing in its effrontery, when it is considered that life and property—justly forfeited by the laws of the country, of war, and of nations, through the magnanimity of the government and people—was not exacted from them.
| Military offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Commander of theArmy of the Cumberland October 19, 1863 – August 1, 1865 | Succeeded by none |