Thomas J. Wood

Thomas J. Wood

Thomas John Wood (born September 25, 1823 in Munfordville (Kentucky) , † February 26, 1906 in Dayton, Ohio ) was an American officer who fought in the Mexican-American War and the Civil War on the side of the Union .

Early life

Wood was born in rural Munfordville, Kentucky, to George Thomas Wood, an officer, and Elizabeth Helm. Across the maternal line, he was a cousin of General Benjamin H. Helm , who fought for the Confederation . In 1845 he graduated from the United States Military Academy . As a second lieutenant , he was accepted into the United States Army Corps of Engineers .

In 1846, Wood was serving on General Zachary Taylor's staff when the Mexican-American War broke out. He was awarded for valor at the Battle of Buena Vista in February 1847. After the war he served in a remote cavalry unit on the US border with the so-called Wild West. Wood traveled across Europe from 1859 to 1861 .

Civil war

At the beginning of the Civil War, Wood set up volunteer regiments in Indiana . In October 1861, he was named Brigadier General of the Indiana Volunteers. In the same year he married Caroline E. Greer of Dayton, Ohio.

Wood commanded a brigade in the campaigns in Tennessee and Mississippi at the beginning of the war. He was in command of a unit in the Army of the Ohio and then the Army of the Cumberland . Wood was there on the second day of the Battle of Shiloh . Wood was wounded at the Battle of Murfreesboro in December 1862. After the Battle of Chickamauga, he was accused of being responsible for the defeat of William S. Rosecrans . On September 19, 1863, in the middle of the battle, Wood had received an order which, if interpreted literally, would appear nonsensical. Instead of verifying it, Wood carried it out. He withdrew a unit and there was a gap in the front.

The soldiers of James Longstreets pushed into this gap and divided Rosecrans' army in half. Rosecrans was stripped of command of the Army of the Cumberland after the Union suffered heavy losses in that battle. Wood kept his command.

Wood led a successful assault in the Battle of Missionary Ridge and the Battle of Lovejoy's Station . In the last, his leg was wounded. Still, he stood in the field and commanded his men. He commanded the IV Corps of the Army of the Cumberland at the Battle of Nashville . Wood resigned from volunteer command on September 1, 1866.

After the war

Wood served in the Occupation Army after the Confederate defeat in Mississippi . Frustrated with his work at Freedmen's Bureau and the policies of Reconstruction , he resigned from the Army in June 1868. He still suffered from old war wounds.

He moved to Dayton and served in the Grand Army of the Republic , a social organization for Union Army veterans. He also served on the board of a military academy. When he died in 1906, he was the last survivor of the West Poin class.

literature

• Cozzens, Peter. This Terrible Sound: The Battle of Chickamauga . Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992, ISBN 0-252-02236-X .
• Eicher, John H., and David J. Eicher , Civil War High Commands. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3 .

Web links

• Thomas J. Wood in the database of Find a Grave (English)