|
|
|
|
|
|
|
George H. Thomas (1816–1870)
|
A Virginia-born professional soldier who chose to
remain with the Union during the Civil War, General
George Henry Thomas earned the title “the Rock
of Chickamauga” for the stubborn defense of
his line on the Tennessee battlefield during a near
rout of General William Rosecran’s Army of the Cumberland.
Thomas succeeded Rosecrans in command of the Cumberland
forces shortly before the victory of Chattanooga,
in which his army played a conspicuous role. When
John Bell Hood’s Confederate troops broke away from
Atlanta in late 1864, menacing Sherman’s line of
communications, Thomas attacked Hood at Nashville,
inflicting on him the worst defeat sustained in
open battle by either side during the war. Hood’s
army played no further important part in the war.
Thomas was promoted to the rank of major general
and in March 1865 received the thanks of Congress.
After the war, Thomas commanded military departments
in Kentucky and Tennessee, and in 1869, he assumed
command of the Military Division of the Pacific
at San Francisco, where he died. |
|
Mathew B. Brady Studio (active 1844–1883)
Daguerreotype, circa 1855
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
|
|
|
|
|
