The Birthday of Eternity

George Henry Thomas, died March 28, 1870

In November 1860, Thomas requested a one-year leave of absence from the army. His 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 Virginia, he suffered a mishap in Lynchburg, falling from a train platform and severely injuring his back. As he was 44 years old, this accident led him to contemplate leaving military service and caused him pain for the rest of his life. 

At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, 19 of the 36 officers in the 2nd U.S. Cavalry resigned, including three of Thomas's superiors—Albert Sidney Johnston, Robert El Lee and William Hardee.  Many Southern-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. 

Thomas stayed in the Union Army with some degree of suspicion surrounding him. 

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."

Thomas was promoted in rapid succession. In the First Bull Run Campaign, he commanded a brigade. On January 18, 1862, he defeated Confederate generals Crittenden and Zollicoffer at Mill Srpings, gaining the first important Union victory in the war, breaking Confederate strength in eastern Kentucky, and lifting Union morale.  

At the Battle of Chickamauga on September 19, 1863, he once again held a desperate position against General Braxton 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 president James told General   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.

Thomas succeeded Rosecrans in command of the Army of the Cumberland shortly before the Battle for Chattanooga (November 23 – November 25, 1863), a stunning Union victory that was highlighted by Thomas's troops storming the Confederate line on Missionary Ridge.

During General 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. At the Battle of Peachtree Creek (July 20, 1864), Thomas's defense severely damaged General Hood's army in its first attempt to break the siege of Atlanta. At the Battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864, a large part of Thomas's force dealt Hood a strong defeat and held him in check long enough to cover the concentration of Union forces in Nashville. Thomas attacked on December 15, 1864, in the Battle of Nashville and effectively destroyed Hood's command in two days of fighting.  Thomas also received another nickname from his victory: "The Sledge of Nashville".

Shortly after Lee's surrender, Union general John Gibbon had heard that the Thomas sisters were suffering, and sent them a wagonload of supplies as a token of his friendship for their brother. Judith Thomas would not accept, insisting she had no brother George, that he had died on the day Virginia seceded.

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 th Reconstruction period, Thomas acted to protect free black people 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 the Ku Klux Klan.

President Andrew Johnson offered Thomas the rank of lieuntenant general, with the intent to eventually replace Grant, a Republican, with Thomas as general in chief—but the ever-loyal Thomas asked the Senate to withdraw his name for that nomination because he did not want to be party to politics. 

In 1869 he requested assignment to command the Military Division of the Pacific with headquarters at the Presidio of San Francisco.

Presidio Officer Quarters

He died there on March 28, 1870,  of a stroke while writing an answer to an article criticizing his military career by his wartime rival John Schofield. He was 53 years old.

He was the first high-ranking Union general to die after the Civil War, and his coffin was greeted by crowds throughout its transfer back East.

His widow was Frances Kellogg Thomas, to whom he had been married for 18 years.  They had no children.

Both Sherman and Grant attended Thomas's funeral, and were reported by third parties to have been visibly moved by his passing. 

None of his blood relatives attended his funeral as they had never forgiven him for his loyalty to the Union and not Virginia. 

Over 10,000 mourners, including many senior government officials, attended a large public funeral at Thomas' wife's church in Troy, New York.  He was buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Troy.

Thomas Grave

His gravestone was sculpted by Robert Launitz and comprises a white marble sarcophagus  topped by a bald eagle.

Plaque in front of grave

Thomas has generally been held in high esteem by Civil War historians; Bruce Catton and Carl Sandburg wrote glowingly of him, and many consider Thomas one of the top Union generals of the war. But Thomas never entered the popular consciousness like some of the other 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 refighting 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. When a rain-soaked Grant arrived at Thomas's headquarters before the Chattanooga Campaign, Thomas, caught up in other activity, did not acknowledge the general for several minutes until an aide 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 his Personal Memoirs, Grant tended to minimize Thomas's contributions, particularly during the Franklin-Nashville Campaign, saying his movements were "always so deliberate and so slow, though effective in defence." Grant, however, also took painstaking care to praise Thomas's abilities. He openly and fully acknowledged in the event of Nashville that Thomas's success obviated all criticism. 

Sherman, who had been close to Thomas throughout the war, also repeated the accusation after the war that Thomas was "slow".  Sherman concluded that Grant and Thomas were "heroes" deserving "monuments like those of Nelson and Wellington in London."

Fort Thomas, Kentucky

A fort south of Newport, Kentucky was named in his honor, and the city of Fort Thomas now stands there and carries his name as well. 

Statue of Thomas in Thomas Circle

In 1879, veterans of the Army of the Cumberland dedicated an equestrian statue of Southampton's most distinguished son in Washington's Thomas Circle. Thomas's legendary bay horse, Billy, bore his friend Sherman's name.

Thomas Circle

Bust of Thomas in Grant's Tomb

A bust of Thomas is located in Grant's Tomb in New York City.

Thomas Sword

In the 1840s, the citizens of Southampton County, presented Thomas with an 1840 pattern sword and scabbard for gallantry in Florida (the Seminole War) and the Mexican War.   Thomas is known to have worn the sword only once, at his wedding on November 7, 1852, to Miss Frances Kellogg. Afterward, perhaps because the Thomases moved from post to post, he left the sword in the safekeeping of his sisters. 

However, when in 1861 he refused an offer to become Confederate Chief of Ordnance and remained loyal to the Union, his sisters returned his letters unopened, and his appeals for the sword ignored.  When the last sisters died in 1900—Judith E. Thomas and Fanny C. Thomas—the sword was bequeathed to the Virginia Historical Society.