Thomas Garland Jefferson

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]

Thomas Garland Jefferson
Born(1847-01-01)January 1, 1847
Winterham, Virginia
DiedMay 18, 1864(1864-05-18) (aged 17)
New Market, Virginia
Allegiance Confederate States of America
Service/branch Confederate States Army
Years of service1864
RankCadet private
UnitCompany B, Corps of Cadets
Battles/warsAmerican Civil War

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]

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