Edward Lloyd Thomas ( March 23, 1825 - March 8, 1898 ) - American military, Army General of the Confederation during the American Civil War .
| Edward Lloyd Thomas | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Date of Birth | March 23, 1825 |
| Place of Birth | Clark County , Georgia |
| Date of death | March 8, 1898 (72 years old) |
| Place of death | Macalester, Oklahoma |
| Affiliation |  USA  KSA |
| Type of army | U.S. Army |
| Years of service | 1847-1848 (USA) 1861–1865 (KSA) |
| Rank | Brigadier General (KSA) |
| Battles / wars | Mexican war
|
The early years
Thomas was born in the state of Georgia , in Clark County , in the family of Edward Lloyd Thomas and Mary Hog. He was the youngest among his 10 brothers. He entered Oxford College at Emory University, at the end of some time engaged in farming, and from May 1847 to August 1848 he participated in the Mexican War with the rank of second lieutenant. He served in a separate Georgian cavalry company. Three of his brothers became officers in the Confederate Army : Henry Philip became a colonel of the 16th Georgian Regiment and died in the Battle of Fort Sanders , Lovewick Pierce I became captain and quartermaster of the 35th Georgian Regiment, and Wesley Wales served as a major in the Philip Cavalry Legion ".
Civil War
After the secession of Georgia, in October 1861, Thomas became a colonel in the 35th Georgian regiment. Initially, the regiment was part of the Johnston Pettigrew brigade . He fought near Yorktown and retreated to Richmond, where at the battle of Seven Pines Pettigrew was wounded and the brigade disbanded. After that, the regiment was transferred to the Joseph Anderson brigade, in the " Light Division " of General Ambrose Hill [1] . At the start of the Seven Day Battle, Thomas was wounded in the Battle of Beaverdam Creek. The wound was not serious and Thomas remained in service. The 35th George proved himself in that battle; of the entire Anderson brigade, he alone managed to break through to the east bank of the river, occupy a bridgehead there and hold it for some time.
When Anderson left the brigade and headed the Tredegar Iron Works company, Colonel Thomas led the brigade, and on November 1, 1862, he was promoted to brigadier general [2] ). By the beginning of the North Virginia campaign, the brigade consisted of four Georgian regiments:
- 14th George: Colonel Robert Folsom
- 35th georgian
- 45th George: Major Washington Grice
- 49th George: Lt. Col. Seborn Manning
He remained in this post until the end of the war and took part in almost all the battles of the North Virginia Army . Thomas performed well in the battle of Cedar Mountain , and then fought on a difficult battlefield in the second battle of Bull Run. During the Maryland campaign , the Thomas brigade participated in the battle for Harpers Ferry and after taking the city was left there, which is why she missed the battle of Entity [3] .
When Ambrose Hill became commander of the corps, Thomas's brigade was part of the division of William Pender . The Thomas brigade was never brought into battle at the battle of Gettysburg. On July 1, during the attack of the Pender division, the brigade was kept in reserve until the end of the battle. On July 2, the entire division did not participate in the battles, and on July 3, when General Lee was looking for fresh units to attack the Seminar Range , for some reason he did not use this brigade. As a result, during the entire campaign, the team lost only 152 people [3] .
When Pender was mortally wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg , Thomas remained the senior after him in rank, but he could not become a divisional commander: he was a Georgian, and the brigades in the division were mostly North Carolina. As a result, the Thomas brigade was part of the Cadmus Wilcox division and fought in this division until the end of the war.
Post-war activities
After the war, Thomas returned to Georgia and started farming near Covington. In 1885, President Cleveland appointed him to the post of special agent for the Kansas Land Bureau. He later worked at the Sac and Fox Agency in Oklahoma, engaging with Indians. He died in 1898 in South Makalister, Native American Territory, and was buried in Kiowa, Oklahoma.
Notes
- ↑ Tagg, C.336
- ↑ Antietam on the Web
- ↑ 1 2 Tagg, C.337
Literature
- Huff, Frederick Ware. Four Families: Winn, Thomas, Ware, Garrett of the Southern United States from 1600s to 1993. Kennesaw, GA: Frederick Ware Huff, 1993. OCLC 29382913.
- Larry Tagg, The Generals of Gettysburg: The Leaders of America's Greatest Battle, Da Capo Press, 2008
- Warner, Ezra J. Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959. ISBN 0-8071-0823-5 .