Bring Thomas Home
A photographic essay and plea to restore General George H. Thomas to his rightful place in our nation's history
by Bob Redman, copyright © 11 Aug. 2003
 |
Thomaston - Birthplace of Gen. George H. Thomas
.
|
|
|
|
|
News |
|
|
|
|
| |
 |
Thomaston is about 2 miles east
of Newsoms,
VA and near the
N.C.
border in the Virginia tidewater region. Leave I-95 at Emporia, VA, take US-58 east 23 miles, turn south on VA-35, then left on Grays Shop Rd. into Newsoms. From there, head east toward Franklin on General Thomas Hwy. (Hwy. 671) for 2 miles. Turn left onto Cypress Bridge Rd. (Hwy. 674), then turn left immediately onto Thomaston Rd. Thomaston is a white private home at 2837 Chickamauga Dr. and is indicated by an historical marker. To make an appointment
to
visit Thomaston contact John Skeeters at
<jskeets1@earthlink.net>.
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Front view of Thomaston.
The original part where Thomas was born, is behind. |
Front view showing 300
year
old oak tree on left. An acorn was
the
symbol Thomas chose for his favored XIV Corps. |
Back view of house. When Thomas was
born the house only had 3 rooms (the part surrounded by the blue line).
The
other parts were added later. |
Schoolhouse
behind
Thomaston |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||||
|
The monument in the Thomas family
graveyard
next to Thomaston
The 4th side is blank and therefore not shown here. The other 3 sides show the names of the Thomas parents (John and Elizabeth, né Rochelle), and 7 of the 9 children. George is buried in Troy, NY, and Benjamin is buried in Vicksburg where he lived before and after the war. According to Wilbur Thomas (General George H. Thomas, pg. 48), "John William was the eldest child; Judith Elvira, the second; Benjamin, the third; and George Henry, the subject of this work, the fourth. Unfortunately, the remaining children cannot be placed in their order of birth." His source were the Mattie R. Tyler Papers in the Southampton County Courthouse. However, since the children on the one side of the monument are arranged in order of birth, it is reasonable to assume that the stonemason had received instructions. The complete order would thus be as follows: 1. John William 2. Judith Elvira (died 1903) 3. Benjamin (1814-1876), buried in Vicksburg, Miss. 4. George Henry (born 31 July 1816, died in San Francisco 28 March 1870 , buried in Troy, NY) 5. Anne 6. Francis G. (Fanny, died 1902) 7. Lucy Briggs (né Thomas) 8. Elizabeth 9. Juliett Exact dates of birth
and
death of the other 7 children would be appreciated. - Bob Redman
In a
geneology search for Benjamin Thomas I find the following entry:
Sarah B. Brooks f0ght@tir.com
15 May 2000
Looking for information on
the following Thomas' who lived in Madison
Parish, LA, about 1902:
THOMAS, Nathaniel W., THOMAS, Rosa C., THOMAS, Lillie. These were the children of Benjamin THOMAS (1814-1876) and his wife, Virginia of Vicksburg, MS and are buried with their parents there. Benjamin THOMAS was a brother of the Union General, George Henry THOMAS (1816-1870). If anyone can help me locate descendants of the above THOMAS children, I would greatly appreciate the assistance! 7 Dec. 2009 Dear Sarah, Did you ever find out anything? Bob Redman Madison County Louisiana Archives Military Records.....WWII - EnlistmentServ.# 38389255 - THOMAS NATHANIEL W - enlisted in SHREVEPORT LOUISIANA on 23/2/43 -White, citizen Single, without dependents - Private - born 1924 in Miss.
Looking for information on Annie Thomas Fitzhugh of Vicksburg, MS. She was the daughter of Benjamin R. Thomas (1814-1876) and wife, Virginia. Annie married a Fitzhugh and was living in Vicksburg, MS about 1903. Any help is greatly appreciated. |
|||||||||
.
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Plaque located
in front of Thomaston |
Plaque on
Highway
58 between Courtland and Franklin |
The
Rochelle
house in Courtland, home of Thomas'
mother Elizabeth |
Interior view of the
Rochelle
house with well-kept period furnishings |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| View of the
Courtland
County courthouse today |
The courthouse
as it looked when Thomas read law there, from a painting in the
Rochelle
house. Nat Turner was tried here. |
The Southampton County
Historical
Society maintains a display in the courthouse. In
the
case are books and publications about the county. The portrait is of
Colgate
Darden, Jr. (governor of Virginia 1942-46), who
was
a champion of Thomas. |
Display case in
courthouse
with Indian artifacts |
According to Earasmus Darwin
Keyes,
Thomas' superior at Ft. Lauderdale in 1832: "There
is
a moral in the life and services of Thomas. He was strictly
conscientious, he loved Virginia, and his affections for the South were
strong. He was warm also to the Union."1
According to Thomas Buell: "When
the Tennessee campaign ended, Thomas had performed the unsurpassed
masterpiece
of theater command and control of the Civil War. So modern in concept,
so
sweeping in scope, it would become a model for strategic maneuver in
twentieth-century
warfare."2
Today, 142 years after Virginia seceded from the Union on 17 July
1861 and then Col. George H. Thomas of Southampton County did not
follow his
state, but rather his oath, he is still a controversial figure among
those
who remember him. He is largely overlooked in popular presentations of
the
Civil War, and utterly ignored in our nation’s middle- and high-school
history
textbooks. He might get a paragraph in a college textbook. This is the
case
in spite of his having been the most successful general on either side.
He
never lost an engagement where he really commanded. In short, he was
the
rock of a lot of places besides Chickamauga, where on 20 Sept. 1863 he
rallied
25,000 Union soldiers to hold off 60,000 Confederates long enough to
permit
the Union army to make an ordered retreat, or advance according to some
commentators, to the real objective of the battle - Chattanooga. At
Murfreesboro (31 Dec. 1862) his presence at the center was absolutely
decisive in staving off Bragg’s attack,3 and nobody but
Thomas could have parried Hood’s attack
at Peachtree Creek (20 Aug. 1864). This was the real battle of Atlanta,
downgraded
by Sherman in his own interest4 to Hood’s “first sortie.” In
addition,
Thomas was more like a hammer, and a heavy one at that, at Mill
Springs,
the first major Union victory of the war (19 Jan. 1862), at Tullahoma
(22-29
June 1863) where, under Thomas, the Spencer repeating rifle was first
used
on a large scale, at the decisive battle of Chattanooga (23-25 Nov.
1864)5
where he managed the battle behind Grant's back and saved Grant's
career,
and at Nashville (15-16 Dec. 1864) where he was both hammer and anvil.6
To learn more about these battles go to my Battles
and Reports page.
He achieved these successes by dint of decades of hard work and study.
While
other officers out on the frontier gambled, drank, tried to grow
potatoes, and messed with the cash box, Thomas conducted botanical,
zoological, and
topographical studies and composed a first dictionary of the language
of
the Yuma Indians. While sitting on court martial boards he became an
expert
in military law. From the smallest skirmish with Indians to the battle
of
Buena Vista he drew his conclusions about the principles of engagement.
During the Civil War he embraced the latest technologies while applying
timeless military principles – train your men well and take care of
them,
do your best to make your opponent attack you, by all means know more
than
your opponent, and pierce the center only after at least one of the
flanks
has been turned. He also gave a good example to his men by never taking
a single day of leave during the entire war, and by sharing their
dangers.
He introduced battlefield procedures which today are part of standard
military
doctrine. While still training cavalry troops in Carlisle, PA, before
the
first battle of Bull Run, he wrote a memorandum to Winfield Scott
outlining
his strategy for winning the war – Cut the Confederacy in two by
driving
through East Tennessee on Chattanooga.7 It took him 2
½
years along a different route, but when nobody else could or would do
it,
he did it himself. As it turned out, this was the strategy which broke
the
stalemate in Virginia. Perhaps most significantly, wherever he
commanded,
even at the battle of Nashville, the rate of casualties was relatively
low
- on both sides. His object was not to annihilate an enemy, but
rather
to disorganize an opponent. To learn more about his accomplishments, go
to
my Salient Facts page.
His record earned him little credit from some Union generals like Grant
who
feared Thomas as a rival for top command, and toward the end of the war
Grant,
not one of whose battles bears close inspection,8 began a
campaign to diminish Thomas’ reputation which he pursued as long as he
lived. After he died, Grant’s biographers continued in this vein and
shaped the historiography of the Civil War with the results described
above. It is true that Thomas' uncommon ability was recognized and
appreciated by many people in high places in and outside of Washington
during the war, but nevertheless his promotions came slowly. One reason
for this was his lack of a state political machine to watch over his
fortunes. He'd left that behind when he opted for the Union. But let us
be charitable toward the politicians. Commissions to high rank were
scarce, and the horde aspiring thereto was huge. In their mostly
undocumented back-room discussions they may well have said, "Let the
Virginian wait. He will do his duty and get the job done anyway."
If you follow the currents of the internecine political battles fought
on
both sides, Grant’s behavior was predictable and even understandable.
Every
war tosses up desperate adventurers. The concomitant rejection of
Thomas by
most Southerners, and by some Southern students of the Civil War even
today,
is equally understandable, but the reasons for it are perhaps more
complex.
The obvious assertion that Thomas betrayed his “country”, i.e. the
State
of Virginia, falls short when we consider that other prominent
Virginians
like Gen. Winfield Scott and Admiral David Farragut also opted for the
Union,
without becoming the objects of the denigration or even vilification to
which
Thomas was subjected. While Scott's stout unionism was a comfort to
Northerners,
and Farragut's war contributions were stellar, someone else in their
position
would have done much the same thing. What really rankled the
Southerners
in Thomas' case was the fact that he was irreplaceable.9
Today much of the heated discussion of the past has been replaced
with a calmer assessment of Thomas, but at the very center of this
assessment, Thomas’ home area – Southampton County – there is still a
strong ambivalence toward its most prominent native son. This
ambivalence can be explained by
several factors, perhaps the first of which was the ambivalence of
Southampton
County itself to the whole question of secession. In fact, according to
a local resident, in the vote (among property owners of course) to
ratify
secession, Southampton County split in half. The half of the county in
which
Thomas grew up was decidedly against secession, so Thomas wasn’t really
acting
against the sentiments of many of his neighbors.
There were no typical plantations in this part of Virginia because its
widespread swamps precluded large-scale agriculture. For example, the
Thomas family holding
at around 500 acres and 15 slaves was one of the larger units in the
county.
Therefore the interest of many Southampton County residents diverged
from
that of most members of Virginia's ruling political class.
There is also reason to believe that he acted less against the
sentiments
of his family than is commonly asserted:
1) After the war Thomas demonstrably maintained amicable relations with
his brother Benjamin, and there is no proof that there had ever been a
rupture.
When some lost-cause members of the new Tennessee legislature proposed
to
sell a portrait of Thomas hanging in the state capitol building,
Benjamin
tried to buy it.10 In 1869, before leaving from Nashville
for
his final duty station in California, Thomas sent a former slave (whom
he
had acquired for his wife when stationed in Texas before the war, left
at
Thomaston during the war, and brought to Nashville at the end of the
war),
along with her family, to Benjamin’s care in Vicksburg where he lived
at
the time.11
2) The stories about Judith and Fanny, the last surviving sisters,
according to which they kept George’s portrait turned to the wall,
considered him to have died when he abandoned Virginia, and so forth,
are probably exaggerated. Dr. W.D. Barham, Judith’s physician, reported
that the sisters were mortified
by such rumors, and that they felt more sorrowful than angered at their
brother’s decision. According to the physician, the sisters also sent
acorns
from the enormous oak tree (see photo above) in front of their house in
order
to be planted around Thomas’ equestrian
statue at Thomas Circle in Washington, DC.12
The county as a whole, or even the South, might have rejected the idea
of
secession if a person named Nat Turner hadn’t burned the question of
slavery into the people’s minds when he began his insurrection on 21
Aug. 1831, during which he and the band of other disaffected slaves he
had gathered up killed 55 whites – men, women, and children. Claiming
to have received divine inspiration, he began his campaign, the largest
one of its kind in U.S. history, within just a few miles of the Thomas
family farm. Some slaves joined Turner, others fought against him.
Thomas’ mother led her family to safety in Courtland
and was helped to do so by some of her own slaves, according to local
tradition. Thomas was 15 years old at the time, and as he later
reflected on his experience fleeing along Cypress Bridge Road through
Mill Swamp, he came to a different
conclusion than did many of his countrymen. This terrifying episode was
implanted
so forcefully into the collective memories of the people of that area,
that
even today it is a standard topic of discussion and memorialized in
road
signs (Blackhead Signpost Road, Greenhead Road, etc.).13
Fear is a poison which can exercise its force on a body politic for
decades and even centuries after the original cause of that fear has
been overcome or even forgotten. Since most people tend to overestimate
their own “freedom of choice” and to discount the long-term effects of
such determining influences, they find themselves in quandary when
asked by a disinterested observer about what really motivates them to
take certain stances in political and social disputes.
With time, however, some people slowly begin to question the accepted
certainties
of the past. For example, recently a Southhampton County resident,
touching
on the insurrection without any prompting from me, said, “Nat Turner
was
a fanatic. But considering that he was a slave, it’s hard to hold it
against
him.” Nobody was more aware of the enormity of what he had done than
Turner
himself. The trackless Great Dismal Swamp beckoned a mere 30 miles
away, but
after the carnage he hid near home for 70 days, and then gave himself
up
to trial and gallows. Under the frustration of a lifetime of not being
taken
seriously he had snapped and set in motion a process which snuffed out
the
lives of 55 people who were also trapped in that unfortunately
contrived social
system, along with the lives of the insurrectionists and of other
blacks
simply found off their farms at the wrong time. Cursed be the lot of
the
slave, and well as that of the master.
For whatever reason, since the end of the Civl War, a debate about
Thomas has been carried out among the residents of Southampton County.
He has had his local champions, such as Colgate Darden, Jr., governor
of Virginia 1942-46 (see portrait above). Plaques have been erected and
dedicated with public ceremony, a road has been named after him
(General Thomas Highway). Money has been collected in order to
refurbish Thomas’ gravesite in Troy, NY. Efforts were even made to have
his body brought back to Virginia for reburial. Occasionally
a tourbus finds its way to Thomaston. On the other hand, Thomas’
ceremonial
sword, given to him by Southampton County notables in recognition of
his
performances in Florida and in the Mexican War, remains in a Richmond
museum.
Another of his swords (some ordinary duty sword or the Mill Springs
sword?)
remains locked up in a vault in Franklin, no portrait of Thomas hangs
in
a public place,14 no center devoted to his study has been
established,
no school has been named after him, and no statue of him stares out
over
the Nottaway River from the park beside the courthouse.
In his Memoirs Sherman predicted that large numbers of Southerners
would someday be making pilgrimages to Virginia to honor Thomas’
memory. That has
not taken place, at least not to the extent he perhaps
envisioned, but
it can be argued that something more subtle has taken place. In a
speech given
14 years after the war Gen. Irvin McDowell said:
"Is it not, indeed, an immortal glory for Virginia to have produced the noblest soldier of the Revolution and the noblest that fought for the North in the Civil War, as well as the noblest that fought for the South? I hope some day to see her erect a worthy monument to one of the greatest of her sons. But, as she grows every year richer, more prosperous, more fortunate, more loyal in the Union for which he helped to save her, she herself, whether she wills it or not, will more and more become his proudest monument."15
Toward the end of the war Grant asked Thomas about the best route for one of his armies to take through Virginia. Although the most direct way would have been through Southampton County, Thomas recommended another. After the war Thomas arranged that the army should deliver supplies to the county, and took no credit for the act. The man who protected Southhampton Country from afar, said this about the conduct of Union soldiers when in enemy territory:
"We must remember that this is a civil war, fought to preserve the Union that is based on brotherly love and patriotic belief in the one nation. It is bad enough for us to demand that love of a restored Union at the point of the bayonet, but we can justify ourselves by claiming what we do is from a sense of duty. The thing becomes horribly grotesque, however, when from ugly feeling we visit on helpless old men, women, and children the horrors of a barbarous war. We must be as considerate and kind as possible, or we will find that in destroying the rebels we have destroyed the Union."16From this exposition it should already be clear that Thomas deserves more consideration than he gets from most Virginians and many Southhampton County residents. But there are still other considerations.
 |
Notes:
17. Piatt, pg. 502.
16. "General George H. Thomas, the Indomitable Warrior,"
1963. pg.
309. Many observers shared this opinion. From many I cite this
statement
by gen. Edward Alexander, Longstreet's chief of artillery: "Had our
cause
succeeded, divergent interests must soon have further separated the
States
into groups, and this continent would have been given over to divided
nationalities,
each weak and unable to command foreign credit" ("Military Memoirs of a
Confederate").
18. Wilbur Thomas, pg. 604; Richard O'Connor, "Thomas, Rock
of
Chickamauga," 1948, pg. 195, and others.
-------------------------
Writings from and about Southampton County:
Bessie Thomas Shands, “General George H. Thomas,” Southampton
Historical Society Bulletin, No.4, 1980
Dan Balfour, “Franklin & Southampton in the Civil War,” 2002, ISBN
1561901504
Dan Balfour, “A sketch of the Life of General George H. Thomas,” Southampton
Historical Society Bulletin, No. 5, March 1983
Daniel W. Crofts, “Old Southampton – Politics and Society in a Virginia
City,” 1992, ISBN 08139138353
 |
|
Berryville, VA is located off I-81 just east of Winchester in northern Virginia. Thanks are owed to the Civil War Society of Berryville for making this gesture to bring Thomas home. |