Page News & Courier
Heritage and Heraldry
Thomas Jordan - Page County’s earliest accomplished military leader and noted journalist
Article of July 22, 1999
A future “facile write, excellent manager, and loyal subordinate,” Thomas Jordan was born the son of Gabriel and Elizabeth Ann Sibert Jordan on September 30, 1819 in the Page Valley, and became the only Confederate General produced from Page County. Educated first in Page County schools, Jordan matriculated at the United States Military Academy in the summer of 1836 and by 1840, graduated forty-first in his class which included future notables such as William T. Sherman (also one of his roommates), George Henry Thomas, and Richard S. Ewell. Commissioned as a brevet 2nd lieutenant, Jordan’s first assignment was with the 3rd U.S. Infantry in the Florida Territory.
In the early years of his extensive military career, Jordan proved a colorful figure, serving in the Second and Third Seminole Wars and the Mexican War under both Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott and in Pacific Northwest, where he served in the Steptoe War from 1857-58. During this same period of time, he also introduced steamboat navigation on the upper reaches of the Columbia River. Taking an extended leave of absence in 1860, then, Captain Jordan penned his first book entitled The South, Its Products, Commerce, and Resources.
In the wake of Virginia’s secession, Jordan tendered his resignation in May 1861 and was commissioned as lieutenant colonel of Virginia troops. Ordered to Manassas Junction, he was promoted colonel and made adjutant general to General P.G.T. Beauregard’s Confederate Army of the Potomac. Jordan would follow Beauregard extensively throughout the war usually as senior staff officer and adjutant general of various armies including the Army of Mississippi. Likewise, he would also have his brother, Francis Hubert Jordan (formerly of Page’s Company D, 7th Virginia Cavalry) frequently assigned with him as a junior staff officer. Undoubtably, the senior ranking Jordan also had an influence in the assignment of another younger brother, Macon (former captain of Co. D, 7th Va. Cav.), to General Henry Heth’s staff in the east. Colonel Jordan was particularly noted for his exceptional coordination of Confederate reinforcements while he remained at army headquarters at the Wilmer McLean house during the First Battle of Manassas and for his coordination of troops at the Battle of Shiloh following the death of General Albert Sidney Johnson. For his role at Shiloh, he was promoted brigadier general in September 1862. Jordan was paroled at Greensboro, N.C. on May 1, 1865.
Following the war, Jordan was more noted for his work of the pen, including an article of the Harper’s Magazine which attacked Jefferson Davis as “imperious, narrow, and lacking in administrative talents and statesmanship.” In 1866, he edited the Memphis Appeal and in 1868, in collaboration with J.B. Pryor, penned his second book entitled The Campaigns of Lieutenant-General N.B. Forrest.
In 1869, Jordan became involved in the Cuban independence movement and in May, landed on the shores of Cuba at Mayari with three thousand men and weapons and ammunition for six thousand. Successively becoming the chief of staff and later, commander of forces in the rebellion against Spain, in 1870, he met and defeated a numerically superior army at Guaimaro. However with a price of $100,000 on his head, supplies nearly exhausted and strict enforcement of the neutrality laws by President Grant, Jordan reluctantly resigned his commission and escaped prosecution for his violation of the neutrality laws.
Upon his return to the United States, he became editor of the “Financial and Mining Record of New York” and championed the free coinage of silver. In 1887, he wrote the article “Notes of a Confederate Staff Officer at Shiloh” which was included in Volume I of Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. Jordan died on November 27, 1895, and was buried in Mount Hope Cemetery, near Hastings-on-the-Hudson.
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