Thomas Garland Jefferson Explained

Birth Date:1 January 1847
Birth Place:Winterham, Virginia
Death Place:New Market, Virginia
Serviceyears:1864
Rank:Cadet private
Unit:Company B, Corps of Cadets
Battles:American Civil War

Thomas Garland Jefferson (January 1, 1847  - May 18, 1864) was one of the VMI Cadets killed at the Battle of New Market. He died three days after the battle from wounds suffered during it. He was 17 years old and the great-grand nephew of former US president Thomas Jefferson.[1]

Early years

He was a son of John Garland Jefferson and Otelia Mansfield Howlett of Winterham.[2] He was their oldest son, one of 14 children, on a plantation growing cotton and tobacco.[3] [4]

New Market

On May 15, 1864, at the Battle of New Market, Major General John C. Breckinridge reluctantly ordered the charge of the young cadets to fill a gap in his right wing, resulting in the cadets having taken part in the Confederacy's last major victory of the war. The cadet battalion captured a Union cannon.[5]

Jefferson was shot in the stomach. When two cadets ran to assist him, he told them to carry on fighting, "you can do me no good."[6] He died three days later, in the bed at the home of Lydie Clinedinst, after he was found by Moses Ezekiel wounded and laying in a farmhouse.[7] [8] Ezekiel (who was Jewish) read from John 14 by his bedside. He is buried below the statue of Virginia Mourning Her Dead sculpted by Ezekiel.[9]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Thomas Garland Jefferson and "Mother Crim" – Shenandoah at War.
  2. Web site: VMI Archives Historical Rosters: Thomas Garland Jefferson. archivesweb.vmi.edu.
  3. Book: Around New Market. James R.. Graves. John D.. Crim. 22 June 2019. Arcadia Publishing. Google Books. 9780738542805.
  4. Book: Memorial, Virginia Military Institute: Biographical Sketches of the Graduates and Élèves of the Virginia Military Institute who Fell During the War Between the States. 290 . J.B. Lippincott & Company . Walker. Charles D.. 1875.
  5. Davis, William C. The Battle of New Market. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1975.
  6. Web site: The Military History of the Virginia Military Institute from 1839 to 1865: With Appendix, Maps, and Illustrations. Jennings Cropper. Wise. 22 June 2019. J. P. Bell. Google Books.
  7. Web site: The Invincible A Magazine of History. 22 June 2019. Google Books.
  8. Web site: Southern Practitioner. 1917.
  9. Web site: ...and May God Forgive Me for the Order. 13 July 2010. American Battlefield Trust.