George Henry Thomas

George Henry Thomas (July 31, 1816 – March 28, 1870) was an American general in the Union Army during the American Civil War and one of the principal commanders in the Western Theater.

Thomas served in the Mexican–American War, and despite being a Virginian whose home state would join the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, he was a Southern Unionist who chose to remain in the U.S. Army. Thomas won one of the first Union victories in the war, at Mill Springs in Kentucky, and served in important subordinate commands at Perryville and Stones River. His stout defense at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863 saved the Union Army from being completely routed, earning him his most famous nickname, "the Rock of Chickamauga." He followed soon after with a dramatic breakthrough on Missionary Ridge in the Battle of Chattanooga. In the Franklin–Nashville Campaign of 1864, he achieved one of the most decisive victories of the war, destroying the army of Confederate General John Bell Hood, his former student at West Point, at the Battle of Nashville.

Thomas had a successful record in the Civil War, but he failed to achieve the historical acclaim of some of his contemporaries, such as Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman. He developed a reputation as a slow, deliberate general. In an environment rife with jealousy and avarice for promotion and recognition, Thomas stood out as an oddball for occasionally refusing promotions to positions that he thought he was still not capable of; although on some occasions he regretted his refusals or found it injurious that he was passed over for promotion. After the war, he did not write memoirs to advance his legacy.