COLONEL THOMAS T. MUNFORD AND THE LAST CAVALRY OPERATIONS OF THE CIVIL WAR IN VIRGINIA by Anne Trice Thompson Akers Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in History APPROVED: l%mes I. Robertson, Jr., Chiirmin Thomas Al"/o Adriance Lar;b R. Morrison December, 1981 Blacksburg, Virginia ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I acknowledge, with great respect and admiration, Dr. James I. Robertson, Jr., Chairman of my thesis committee, mentor and friend. He rekindled my ardor for history. With unstinting encouragement, guidance, support and enthusiasm, he kept me in perspective and on course. I also thank Drs. Thomas Adriance and Larry Morrison who served on my committee for their unselfish expense of time and energy and their invaluable criticisms of my work. Special thanks to , Assistant Park Historian, Petersburg National Battlefield, for the map of the Battle of Five Forks, and to , Photographer with the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, who reproduced the map and the photograph. To ., Indian fighter par excellence, I extend warmest regard and appreciation. Simply, I could not have done it without him. I further acknowledge with love my husband who thought I would never do it and my mother who never doubted that I would. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDG}fENTS. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • . • . • • • • • . • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • . • • • • • • ii Chapter I. MtJNFORD: THE YOUNG MA.N'. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 2 II. MUNFORD: THE SOLDIER. • • . • . • . • . • • • . • . • • 13 III. FIVE FORKS: WATERLOO OF THE CONFEDERACY .....•...•..•....•• 31 IV. LAST DAYS OF FITZ LEE'S CAVALRY DIVISION .....••..•.••.••... 82 V. MUNFORD: THE RETIRED CAVALRYMAN •.....•......•.......••..•. 119 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ..•......•.•.•..............•.•......•••.•...130 VITA . ............................................................ 133 iii Thomas Taylor Munford 1 CHAPTER I MUNFORD: THE YOUNG MAN Thomas Taylor· MUnford emerges from history a man out of focus. Of all the dashing, vivid personalities who were part of the Civil War, his name is obscure, his image blurred. A man who rubbed elbows with the likes of J. E. B. Stuart and capered with Stonewall Jackson's cavalry should be well-known in his own right. MUnford is not. He stands unrecognized in the shadows of history. Save for his war experiences, Munford's life was relatively quiet. A picture of his life before the war smacks of Southern tradition and a Virginia heritage. Born in the foreboding year of Nat Turner's re- hellion, Thomas Taylor Munford became the fourth generation of a prominent Old Dominion family. Presumably the first Munford in recorded genealogy to come to Virginia was with the expedition that discovered the Chesapeake Bay. Great-grandfather Robert Munford fought in the Indian Wars as a captain in George Washington's regiment and later in the American Revolution. He was also a member of the Virginia General Assembly. Grandfather William Munford came to Richmond around 1800 from Mecklen- 1 Richmond Times Dispatch, Mar. 1, 1918; "Munford Family Bible, Records of the Munford Family: Births, Marriages, Deaths," Jones Memorial Library, Lynchburg, Va., 3; "Munford Family Genealogy," Munford Family Papers, Duke University. 2 3 burg County and sought his fortune as a lawyer. Later he became Clerk of the House of Delegates, a position he held until his death in 1825. William Munford studied law under George Wythe, pronounced the oration at Wythe's funeral and, in ultimate admiration, had named his first child after the judge. 2 George Wythe Munford chose to study law at William and Mary under the direction of Wyndam Robertson, who later became governor of Virginia. He continued his father's position as Clerk of the House of Delegates until elected Secretary of the Commonwealth, a position he held for twenty-five years. Colonel MUnford, as he was known, compiled the Virginia Code of 1873. He also authored a book on early Virginians entitled Jewels of Virginia. 3 Thomas Taylor Munford, born March 29, 1831, w~s the second son of Colonel Munford and Lucy Harrison Taylor. Munford was a child when his mother died. Colonel Munford later married Elizabeth Thorowgood Ellis. Letters written later in his life reveal that Tom Munford probably thought of Elizabeth Munford as his real mother. From his father's two marriages, Munford had a total of twelve brothers and 4 sisters. Munford grew up in Richmond. He attended the Richmond Academy along with his good friend John Esten Cooke. On July 30, 1849, Munford 2Ibid,; Riehmond Times Dispatch, Mar. 19, 1905; "Munford Family Bible,11"3. 3rbid. 4 Ibid, 8. 4 entered the Virginia Military Academy as a third classman. He proved to be a capable student at the end of his first year, standing number twenty in a class of forty-five. In his second year, he rose to Sergeant-Major, ranking number thirteen out of thirty-one. At his July 5, 1852 graduation, he stood fourteenth of twenty-four cadets. 5 Graduating with Munford were James A. Walker, who would become the last surviving commander of the Stonewall Brigade, and George Smith Patton, grandfather of the famous World War II general. Perhaps the most interesting of the people Munford met at V. M. I. was the new Pro- fessor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy (Physics) and Artillery Tactics, Thomas Jonathan Jackson, who came to the Institute at the out- set of Munford's senior year. As a senior, Munford was Cadet Adjutant and he remembered distinctly Jackson's first review of cadets. On August 14, 1851, the regular commandant of cadets, Major William Gilham, was absent and no one had met his substitute. A ruckus occurred during the parade review when a cadet yelled at someone wearing improper boots. The someone turned out to be the substitute commandant, Jackson, who had slipped in unnoticed among the spectators to watch the review. In his role as Cadet Adjutant, Munford's first association with the future Confederate legend was an apology for the cadet who had criticized 5"Munford Family Bible," 1; John 0. Beaty, John Esten Cooke, Virginian (New York, 1922), 15-16; The Southern Historical Publica­ tion Society, The South in the Building of the Nation (Richmond, 1909), XII, 220-21; Merit Roll, Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Va., 1849-1850, 1850-1851, 1851-1852. 5 6 Jackson's boots. Munford served Jackson closely at V. M. I. throughout his senior year. He observed that Jackson seemed at his best when instructing cadets in artillery tactics. Munford stated: "When he would give the command to the cannoneers to fire! the ring of that voice was clear enough to be heard and to burn amid the rumbling of the wheels, giving life and nerve to the holder of the lanyard. • • • No two individuals could be more unlike • • • than was Major Jackson in repose when thinking of some thing, way off, before he was aroused and interested, the brow that had appeared inanimate and almost drooping at once elevated itself in all the consciousness of power and the whole countenance and figure of the soldier the change [sic] as one who had become inspired. • • I flatter myself to have had extraordinary advantage to learn to honor and to respect and to love •.• this grand, gloomy and peculiarly good man."7 Until 1852, Munford had followed a path commonly traversed by young Southern men of his class. He had been schooled in the proper subjects and educated at one of the finest military institutions in the country. Upon graduation he had several possible careers to pursue. He could, like his father and grandfather, study law. He could go into business. He could become a civil engineer. It seems, however, that Munford was a country boy at heart. Life at Lexington had led him to realize that he preferred the mountanious expanse to city confines. So he abandoned a job in Richmond as clerk to Judge John Mason of the I. R. & K. Railroad and joined a younger brother to seek his fortune 6Julia Smith Martin, Alumni Secretary, V. M. I., to writer, Jan. 7, 1977; Douglas Southall Freeman, Lee's Lieutenants: A Study in Command (New York, 1942), I, 707; Frank E. Vandiver, Mighty Stonewall (New York, 1957), 74. 7 II Ibid., I very much doubt if there was a man at the Institute at any time who had been thrown more directly with him Qackson] or who knew him personally better than I did." Thomas Taylor Munford to E. W. Nichols, July 23, 1911, Munford Papers, V. M. I. 6 as a farmer.8 By October, 1853, he was.engaged happily in a farmer's life. He wrote his father that his corn crop was in first-rate condition. He was concerned about the price of wheat and how his crop would fare against the "joint worm and fly." Munford boasted of having twenty- seven shoats that he would "guarantee" to weigh in at 180 pounds next year and twenty-five more which he thought would weigh in at an average of 140 pounds. He also reassured his father, who had apparently provided much of the financial backing for the Munford brothers' enter- prise: "You may rest assured that the last pack of corn has been bought for the place that will come out of your pocket--Everything was improving when I left home."9 It is unclear exactly where Munford was farming. A letter written by his stepmother in 1853 told of visiting Tom at Rock Spring. A deed with his father, signed the next year, gave Munford property known as the Rock Spring Estate in Powhatan County, Va. Perhaps he had been renting this property to see if he could indeed succeed at farming before making a major purchase. Whatever the case, Munford's main news to his father was not of his wheat or corn or hogs; rather, it was of his impending marriage.