He was born on a Virginia plantation and, as a young man,
received an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. One of his
classmates, and a friend, was William Tecumseh Sherman. The young officer
served with distinction in the Mexican-American War where he was mentored by
Captain Braxton Bragg. Later, as a cavalry and artillery instructor at West
Point, one of his star students, J.E.B. Stuart was to become the one of finest cavalry and reconnaissance officers of the Civil War.
Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee was the academy superintendent at
West Point when J.E.B. Stuart was a cadet. The young officer, who was Stuart’s
mentor and served under Lt. Col. Lee at the time, would later become a Major
General in the Union Army during the Civil War. He was called a traitor by
J.E.B. Stuart, who wished him hung for treason against Virginia. All three of
the soldiers were sons of Virginia.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, many southern-born
officers struggled between loyalty to their home states and loyalty to the
Union Army, in which they had made their careers. George Henry Thomas was a private man, who
later in life destroyed all of his personal documents and papers. The son of a
slave-holding plantation owner, there is little record of his political position
at the time. However, it can be assumed that his marriage to a New York woman provided
some of the influence to his decision to remain in the Union Army.
Thomas advanced rapidly to the rank of Major General when
the Civil War started. However, he was not a man to hold his own lantern high.
More ambitious officers took advantage of this by taking glory for themselves
at the expense of General Thomas. General William T. Sherman is known to have spoken
highly of his West Point classmate at times but, for the most part, his loyalty
was toward General Grant. Sherman’s loyalty to Grant continued after the war when
the post war spotlight shined on the two men as heroes and helped
launch Grant to the presidency.
As Confederate Maj. Gen. Thomas Jackson earned the name
Stonewall Jackson at Second Manassas, so Union Maj. Gen. George Thomas later
became known as the Rock of Chickamauga. Having been driven from Chattanooga by
Union forces, Confederate Maj. Gen. Braxton Bragg was determined to retake the
strategic supply hub. On September 18, 1863, Maj. Gen. Bragg’s army skirmished
with Union forces at Chickamauga Creek.
Union Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans had been watching Bragg’s
army and anticipated an attempt to retake Chattanooga. On September 19 the
Confederacy was gaining ground but could not break through Union defenses. That
changed with the arrival, late that night, of Confederate Gen. James
Longstreet leading eight fresh brigades.
The next morning, using Longstreet’s additional strength,
Bragg launched a two-fronted attack on the Union lines. Thinking that his defenses
had been breached and fearing that his army would be routed, Rosecrans ordered
retreat. In the confusion, Maj. Gen. Thomas took the initiative to rally the
troops that he could find on the field and, with his own troops, took up a defensive
position while the rest of Union Army retreated to Chattanooga.
They held the lines until nightfall when Thomas and his army could retreat
back to Chattanooga under the cover of darkness. The battle resulted in extreme
losses on both sides but was decidedly a Confederate victory. In the end, the
Union held Chattanooga and the Confederacy held the high ground. However, if
not for the actions of the Rock of Chickamauga, in holding the lines against
impossible odds, the Union Army would likely have been routed and, thus, would have lost
Chattanooga.
After the war, up to 1869, Maj. Gen. Thomas commanded the Department
of the Cumberland in Kentucky and Tennessee. President Andrew Johnson offered
Thomas a promotion to the rank of lieutenant general with the intention of
replacing Grant as the general-in-chief. However, Johnson was a Democrat and
Grant was a Republican with his eye on the presidency. Thomas had no taste for
politics. He requested withdrawal from the nomination and asked for command of the
Military Division of the Pacific.
Maj. Gen. George Henry Thomas died of a stroke in 1870. His
remains were transferred from San Francisco back to New York. He is interred in
Troy, New York. Thomas was born a middle child among ten siblings on a Virginia
plantation in 1816. None of his blood relatives attended his funeral. Like
J.E.B. Stuart, they had never forgiven him for, what they considered to be,
treason against his native Virginia.
