Thomas’s Legion
The United States
Civil War produced several legions, large groups of soldiers, during the four
year conflict from 1861 to 1865. The
well known Hampton Legion, Cobb Legion, and Phillips’ Georgia Legion were all
famous commands that overshadowed the mysterious legion known as William
Holland Thomas’s Legion of Indians and Highlanders, or the Thomas Legion. Of all the units designated as legions, only
the one formed by William Thomas remained a legion through the war. It would, in fact, be the last Confederate
unit in North Carolina to lay down its arms. The Thomas Legion is not well documented, but
its deep rooted history can be traced back to Western North Carolina, the
birthplace of William Holland Thomas, the only white man ever known to be
elected chief of a North American Indian tribe.1
William
Holland Thomas was born on February 5, 1805 on the banks of Raccoon Creek in
Haywood County, North Carolina. William
Thomas’s bloodlines trace back through his mother, Temperance Calvert Thomas,
to the Calverts, Lord Proprietors of Maryland, and through his father, Richard
Thomas, to former President Zachary Taylor. In the same year of
William Thomas’s birth, he lost his father to accidental drowning. When Thomas was 12, he was employed by North
Carolina Congressman Felix Walker to work as a general store clerk at a trading
post in Qualla Town, a village established by North Carolinian Cherokee Indians
who fled into the mountains during the era of the great Removal. When Thomas was 14, he and his widowed
mother moved to the west side of the Oconoluftee River. Thomas immediately befriended his neighbor, none other than the revered Chief of the Oconoluftee,
Yonagushka, or “Drowning Bear”. Thomas
developed a passion for the Cherokee people, and with the help of Yonagushka,
he was “adopted” into the Cherokee tribe and given the official Cherokee name
“Wil-Usdi” or “Little Will.” The name
Little Will was derived from Thomas’s short stature of five feet, four
inches. A formal portrait reveals a man
with a lofty forehead, mild blue eyes, a round face with full cheeks, and a
thin mouth. William Thomas was self
educated. He studied the subjects of
mathematics, law, and literature. When
he was sixteen, he opened a general store of his own, and with the
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profits,
he became a real estate tycoon as well as the founder of the first “chain” of
general stores in Western North Carolina.2
In 1831, Thomas was appointed legal representative of the Cherokee tribe, and was their lobbyist in Washington D.C. from 1836 to 1860. He fought for permission for them to live on their native lands and to secure the money due to them under the Treaty of New Echota. In 1838, on his deathbed, Yonagushka named William Holland Thomas to be his successor as chief of the Oconoluftee tribe. Thomas became the unofficial chief of all eastern Cherokee Indians as well.
William Thomas was primarily active in state politics, serving seven consecutive Senate terms. Thomas was chairman of the Committee on Internal Improvements and was responsible for bringing the railroad to Western North Carolina. When the War Between the States broke out in the spring of 1861, Thomas successfully campaigned for a seat in the North Carolina Convention, also called the Secession Convention. Thomas voted for the secession of North Carolina and began raising two companies of Cherokee Indians as militia forces. Thomas wrote to Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America, offering his companies to the Confederacy. Davis, sent General Richard C. Gatlin to gather in Thomas’s volunteer troops, but Thomas refused to let the Indians enter the army unless the state of North Carolina granted them citizenship first. His request was denied, and the companies were simply ignored. The situation remained until March 1862 when Thomas learned that his Cherokee battalion had been accepted into Confederate service. The unit was reportable only to the central government in Richmond, Virginia, completely bypassing the North Carolina chain of command. On April 9, 1862, Thomas and Major Washington Morgan rallied 130 men to serve in East Tennessee along side Major General Edmund Kirby Smith. James Wharey Terrell, was elected First Lieutenant, and Peter Greybeard and Astoogatogeh, two Cherokees, were elected as Second Lieutenants .The company marched to Knoxville, Tennessee where they stayed at Camp Morgan, named for Major Morgan,
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until moving on to Strawberry
Plains, a village fourteen miles northeast of Knoxville.3 Naming the
area Camp Junaluska, the Cherokees settled in, until an outbreak of the
measles, camp fever, and the mumps decimated their forces. Thomas obtained approval from General Kirby
Smith to raise additional companies.
Thomas was assigned three new companies, two from Virginia, and one from
Haywood County, North Carolina. Thomas
also crossed paths with twenty-four year old William W. Stringfield. Thomas and Terrell became well acquainted
with Stingfield while lodging at his home, and soon Stringfield found himself
attached to Thomas’s command as enrollment officer. Stringfield who had already been exposed to considerable action,
was immediately sent to Western North Carolina as a recruitment officer. Stringfield returned followed by William C.
Walker, an old friend of Thomas’s, and 500 recruits.4
Around the same time, reports of Federal activity near Cumberland Gap,
Tennessee led Thomas to send two Indian companies to keep watch. As they moved through Baptist Gap, they were
ambushed and Lieutenant Astoogatogeh, the grandson of revered Chief Junaluska,
was shot and killed. Several of Thomas’s men, infuriated, scalped their
enemies.5
On July 19, 1862, Thomas was promoted to the rank of Major.
In a letter to Confederate leader Jefferson Davis, Thomas claimed that the
increase in number was enough for a regiment, and that he would continue to
reach legion status. The troops were
formally organized as a regiment on September 27, 1862. Thomas was elected Colonel, and James Robert
Love, one of the finest soldiers to emerge from the legion, was named
second-in-command. Lieutenant Terrell
was raised to the rank of captain.6
On November 8, Unionist William B. Carter convinced the Federal authorities to burn Strawberry Plains Bridge. Thomas, concerned of loosing control of Eastern Tennessee, proposed a plan to President Jefferson Davis to open communications with Kentucky and furnish the Confederacy with bread, beef, and bacon. Matters were greatly complicated when Major
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General Ambrose Everett Burnside and
his 20,000 Federal troops occupied Knoxville.
Thomas was already in a complex situation and by April 1, 1863, he
commanded only the First Regiment, made of ten companies. By spring, Thomas and his regiment had not
fought in a single major battle. To make matters worse, Thomas’s new commander,
General Alfred E. “Mudwall” Jackson, did not like Thomas and had him court
marshaled. Though Thomas was
exonerated, this incident, coupled with surrounding Confederate losses, left
morale low. The Confederacy was being
weakened and control of East Tennessee was slipping. The legion did succeed, however, in foiling a Federal attempt to
capture the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad, but were hindered when fellow
Confederate General Longstreet failed to recapture Knoxville. Falling under the command of General Robert
Ransom and General Simon Buckner, the Legion wintered with Longstreet’s army in
Russellville, Tennessee.7
In November 1863, the legion successfully freed their fellow soldiers captured in an earlier encounter with Colonel Felix W. Graham and his Fifth Indiana Cavalry. The legion, however, suffered setbacks in January when Lieutenant Colonel Walker was murdered by Federal raiders, and when General Samuel Dill Sturgis ordered a segment of the Fourteenth Illinois Cavalry to destroy Thomas’s Legion. The Battle of Deep Creek, near Qualla Town, ensued. The legion remained intact, but lost several members who returned home to care for their starving families.8
The legion was scattered, and Thomas was discouraged. Pleading with President Jefferson Davis, Thomas insisted on reunification or resignation. With the help of North Carolina governor, Zebuland Baird Vance, Davis’s military advisor, General Braxton Bragg, recommended that the legion be reunited in Western North Carolina. In June, 1864, however, Love, Stringfield, and the white companies of the legion were moved to Lynchburg furthering the separation that Thomas wished diminished. The new troop commander, William E. Jones, promised reunification once they defeated Union commander Major General David Hunter. It was Jones, however, who
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was killed on June 5, 1864. When Lieutenant General Jubal Anderson Early, commander of the Second Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, along with Thomas’s Legion, pushed back enemy forces into West Virginia, they began their famous march through the Shenandoah Valley into the Battle of Monacacy. The battle, headed by new commander Major General Stephen Dodson, was a victory for Early and the legion. The battle, however, also helped the Union forces. The distraction bought Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant time to reinforce Washington D.C.9
On September 19, 1864, Commander Major General Phill Sheridan attacked Early’s men near Whinchester in the battle of “Third Winchester.” The legion lost 75 men, wounded, killed, or captured. Early made two more attempts at Sheridan, one on the Banks of Cedar Creek. The legion retreated to New Market, near Strasburg, with only 60 men suitable for duty. While a part of the legion fought in the Shenandoah Valley, through the fall of 1864, Thomas was held up in the task of defending his native mountain regions. At the same time, Thomas was under investigation and the power of the legion came to question. The issue of Thomas’s acceptance of deserters from other armies into his command resulted in his court martial to Goldsboro, North Carolina. Thomas, who was found guilty, appealed to President Jefferson Davis, who reversed the ruling. Thomas also succeeded in returning the legion to Western North Carolina. Love led the legion back to the mountains. Only 100 of the 400 dispatched in 1864 returned.10
While Thomas headquartered in Qualla Town, Love and Stringfield commanded the legion soldiers on active duty. Some of the legion assisted Brigadier General James Green Martin against Union commanders Major General George Stoneman and Brigadier General Alvin Gillem in the Battle of Asheville on April 26, 1865; the same day fighting was officially ended in North Carolina. The Battle of Asheville took place without knowing that fighting had stopped with the surrender of General Robert E. Lee to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, in
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Virginia on April 9. Thomas’s Legion assisted in one last Confederate victory, and by May 9, 1865, the career of Thomas’s Legion of Indians and Highlanders was over.11
Thomas returned home to his wife of seven years, Sarah Love,
but his health was deteriorating. With the death of his wife, Thomas’s
depression intensified and he spent the next 15 years in various
hospitals. His children, James,
William, and Sallie Love were sent to live with the wife of Colonel William W.
Stringfield. Possibly infected with
syphilis, William Holland Thomas died at the age of 88 in the Morganton State
Hospital on May 10, 1893.12
Thomas’s Legion, though often unnoticed, was an important Confederate resource in the Civil War between the states. Though the Confederate States of America was defeated, Chief William Holland Thomas and his band of faithful Cherokees did not surrender without a gallant fight. After the war, these Indians, known mostly for their uncharacteristic scalping tactics, fought to obtain citizenship and their rightful property. Eventually, they were granted citizenship and awarded the land that they still occupy today in the mountains of Western North Carolina, near Waynesville, where the legion was born.