Lunsford Lindsay Lomax
(November 4, 1835 – May 28, 1913) was the fourth president of
Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College
and an officer in the
United States Army
who resigned his commission to join the
Confederate Army
at the outbreak of the
American Civil War
. He had maintained a close friendship with his West Point classmate
Fitzhugh Lee
, and served under him as a brigadier in the
Overland Campaign
. He was then given command of the Valley District, where he supervised intelligence-gathering operations by
Mosby's Rangers
.
Early and family life
[
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]
Born in
Newport
,
Rhode Island
, on November 4, 1835, to the former Elizabeth Virginia Lindsay (1800-after 1860) and her husband, Major Mann Page Lomax (1787-1842), Lunsford Lomax was descended from the
First Families of Virginia
. His father was a career U.S. Army officer, specializing in artillery, who had served in New Orleans during the
War of 1812
, and married in 1820 during his leave in
Norfolk, Virginia
. He was named for his great grandfather, Lunsford Lomax (1705-1772) of "Portabago" plantation in
Caroline County
, who also served part-time in the Virginia House of Burgesses from 1742 until 1756 representing that county before the
American Revolutionary War
. His grandfather Thomas Lomax (1750-1835) served on the Caroline County Committee of Safety during the Revolutionary War and later in the
Virginia House of Delegates
. His father died of tuberculosis in
Cambridge, Massachusetts
, when Lomax was seven. His mother raised him and his five sisters in Norfolk, but by 1860 the Lomax womenfolk (his sisters remaining unmarried) had moved to
Washington, D.C.
[1]
After a private education, Lomax received an "at-large" appointment to the
United States Military Academy
at
West Point
, New York. He graduated in 1856
[2]
with fellow Virginia classmate and friend
Fitzhugh Lee
.
Lunsford Lomax married Elizabeth Winter Payne (1850-1932), like him descended from the First Families of Virginia, on February 20, 1873, in
Fauquier County, Virginia
, and they would have daughters Elizabeth Lindsay Lomax Wood (1874?1951) and Anne Tayloe Lomax (1887?1961).
[3]
U.S. Army career
[
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]
Assigned to the prestigious
2nd Cavalry
regiment, Lomax fought on the frontier and served in
Bleeding Kansas
during the years immediately preceding the conflict.
[
citation needed
]
American Civil War
[
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]
Lomax resigned from the army in April 1861,
[4]
and shortly thereafter accepted a
captain's
commission in Virginia state
militia
. Initially assigned to
Joseph E. Johnston
's staff as assistant
adjutant general
, Lomax later served as
inspector general
for
Benjamin McCulloch
. Promoted to
lieutenant colonel
, he was transferred back to the
Eastern Theater
.
Appointed
colonel
of the
11th Virginia Cavalry
[4]
in time for the
Gettysburg campaign
, Lomax was promoted to
brigadier general
after the battle. Lomax fought his
brigade
under the division command of his old classmate Fitzhugh Lee from
Culpeper Courthouse
through
the Wilderness
and around
Petersburg
. He was promoted to
major general
in August 1864
[4]
and was assigned to assist General
Jubal Early
in the
Shenandoah Valley
. After escaping capture at the
Battle of Woodstock
, Lomax was given command of the Valley District. When
Richmond
was evacuated, Lomax tried to join forces with
John Echols
's men at
Lynchburg, Virginia
, but unable to do so, Lomax finally surrendered with Joe Johnston in
North Carolina
.
Lesser known is Lomax's role in the formation of the partisan units that fought in Northern Virginia during the latter part of the War. In a statement made to Caroline Harper Long shortly before his death, published in the Baltimore Sun in 1920 by Beth Rhoades, entitled "Gray Ghost of the Confederacy,"
John Mosby
writes:
General Lomax was with McCulloch in West Tennessee and after McCulloch was killed he was with
Van Dorn
. In the Fall of 1862 he was ordered to Richmond on a special mission. He was then detailed back to Van Dorn just before Christmas. He was a Lt. Colonel and placed in command of the 11th Virginia Cavalry. When Lomax was in Richmond he learned of his future transfer to Virginia. He had a scout sent up from Tennessee to assess the military information situation and to set up
partisan
scouts in the Shenandoah Valley. Up to that time everything in this area had been disorganized and difussed [sic] and relatively ineffective. Lomax wanted a scouting system identical with the very excellent system which existed in West Tennessee. He picked his men from amongst the scouts in West Tennessee and selected a man by the name of Boyd. He had been a railroad detective and he was among the best they had. He arrived in Richmond several days before Lomax left and Boyd proceeded on to
Staunton
where he was met by one of Winder's detectives by the name of Turner. Boyd recruited and trained some 35 to 40 men in
Rockingham
,
Shenandoah
and
Augusta
counties and formed them into the
Linville
Partisan Rangers. He taught them the fine points of scouting,
telegraph
line tapping, use of blasting powder, and all the other things a good scout needs to know. Boyd was one of Van Dorn's best scouts and did a fine job of setting up the partisans in the Valley.
Lomax had also arranged for me to begin independent operations in
Loudoun County
to the North. I got started about the first of the year. At that time I only had a few men, less than a dozen but we soon expanded and trained the men we had. We never were a large group nor were we designed to be a large fighting force. We had to form up and dissolve into the countryside in a few minutes. Secrecy was our greatest ally. We didn't drill like regulars and we had no permanent camps to provide that camp drudgery so disliked by regulars. We used dinner bells and whistles to signal with and to cause assembly. ...
In June of that year my outfit was designated the 43rd Battalion Partisan Rangers. But on his way back to Tennessee Boyd was captured and in fact did not get back to Tennessee before Lomax was transferred to Virginia. In February, after the capture of Boyd became known, the Linville Rangers were put under the command of Jake Cook but they were never officially recognized by the Confederate government and they were never paid. But they were active throughout the valley and they provided good information to Lomax.
Part of the opacity that surrounds Lomax's military career rests with him being the commanding officer of Mosby and the other partisan units in the
Valley
that brought information to General
Lee
and others. In fact, Mosby told Caroline Harper, an acquaintance who had been raised in the same aristocratic circles of Old Virginia, the illegitimate daughter of a prominent politician, that he had not felt he could even give the interview until Lomax's death, in order to protect him, for they were the closest of friends, both during and after the war.
Postwar years
[
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]
After
Appomattox
, Lomax farmed in
Caroline
and
Fauquier
counties for over 20 years. He was appointed president of the
Virginia Agriculture and Mechanical College
in 1886, serving until resigning in 1891.
[2]
[5]
He continued contact with Jubal Early, and months after the death of former Confederate President
Jefferson Davis
, vehemently objected to his daughter Winnie's proposed marriage to Alfred Wilkinson, a New Yorker whose father had been an abolitionist.
[6]
Lomax later became a clerk in the
War Department
assembling and editing the
Official Records
of the war and was for a time commissioner of
Gettysburg National Park
.
[4]
Death and legacy
[
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]
Lomax's grave in the
Warrenton Cemetery
Death notice in the
Marshall Messenger
, 28 May 1913
Lomax died May 28, 1913, and was buried in
Warrenton, Virginia
.
See also
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]
References
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]
Notes
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]
Bibliography
[
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]
- Biography
at the
Alexandria, Virginia library
online collection
- Boatner, Mark Mayo, III
.
The Civil War Dictionary
. New York: McKay, 1988.
ISBN
978-0-8129-1726-0
. First published New York, McKay, 1959.
- Eicher, John H., and
David J. Eicher
,
Civil War High Commands.
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.
ISBN
978-0-8047-3641-1
.
- Sifakis, Stewart.
Who Was Who in the Civil War.
New York: Facts On File, 1988.
ISBN
978-0-8160-1055-4
.
- Warner, Ezra J.
Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959.
ISBN
978-0-8071-0823-9
.
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