{{about||the mayor of Greenville, North Carolina|Allen M. Thomas|those of a similar name|Alan Thomas (disambiguation)}} {{Infobox military person |name = Allen Thomas |image = Brig. Gen. Allen Thomas.jpg |caption = |birth_date = {{Birth date|1830|12|14}} |death_date = {{Death date and age|1907|12|03|1830|12|14}} |birth_place = Howard County, Maryland |death_place = Waveland, Mississippi |burial_place = Donaldsonville, Louisiana |burial_label = |burial_coordinates = |nickname = |birth_name = |allegiance = {{Flagicon|CSA}} Confederate States of America |branch = {{flagicon|CSA|army}} Confederate States Army |service_years = 1861–1865 (CSA) |rank = 35px Brigadier General (CSA) |service_number = |unit = |commands = |battles = American Civil War |battles_label = |awards = |relations = |other_work = Professor of Agriculture<br>Louisiana State University<br>Coiner, U.S. Mint (New Orleans)<br>U.S. Minister to Venezuela |signature = }}
'''Allen Thomas''' (December 14, 1830 – December 3, 1907) was a Confederate States Army brigadier general during the American Civil War (Civil War). He was born in Howard County, Maryland, and became a lawyer but he moved to Louisiana in the later 1850s and became a planter and colonel in the Louisiana militia. After the war, he was a planter, Presidential elector in 1872 and 1880, professor of agriculture at Louisiana State University and coiner at the United States Mint at New Orleans, Louisiana. He moved to Florida in 1889. Between 1894 and 1897, he was United States Minister to Venezuela. He moved to Mississippi in 1907 and died there in that year. He was buried at Donaldsonville, Louisiana.
==Early life== Allen Thomas was born December 14, 1830, in Howard County, Maryland.<ref name="Eicher526">Eicher, John H., and David J. Eicher. ''Civil War High Commands''. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001. {{ISBN|0-8047-3641-3}}. p. 526.</ref> He graduated from Princeton University in 1850 and became a lawyer.<ref name="Eicher526"/><ref name="Warner303">Warner, Ezra J. ''Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders.'' Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959. {{ISBN|0-8071-0823-5}}. pp. 303–304.</ref><ref name="Faust 753">Faust, Patricia L. "Thomas, Allen" in ''Historical Times Illustrated History of the Civil War'', edited by Patricia L. Faust. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. {{ISBN|978-0-06-273116-6}}. p. 753.</ref> After his marriage, in 1857, he moved to Louisiana where he became a planter and a colonel in the Louisiana militia.<ref name="Eicher526"/><ref name="Warner303"/><ref name="Faust 753"/> He was a brother-in-law of Confederate Lieutenant General Richard Taylor.<ref name="Eicher526"/><ref name="Warner303"/><ref name="Faust 753"/><ref name="Sifakis648">Sifakis, Stewart. ''Who Was Who in the Civil War.'' New York: Facts On File, 1988. {{ISBN|0-8160-1055-2}}. p. 648.</ref><ref name="Boatner835">{{Civil War Dictionary|page=835}}</ref>
==American Civil War service== [[File:22-26-165-thomas-cropped.jpg|thumb|Bronze relief portrait of Thomas by T.A.R. Kitson, Vicksburg National Military Park]]
Allen Thomas joined the 29th Louisiana Infantry<ref>Boatner, 1988, p. 835 says this is sometimes known as the 28th Louisiana Infantry, although that unit is also shown as Gray's regiment.</ref> as a major in July 1861.<ref name="Eicher526"/><ref name="Sifakis648"/> On May 3, 1862, he was promoted to colonel of the regiment, when it was expanded from its original battalion size.<ref name="Eicher526"/><ref name="Warner303"/><ref name="Faust 753"/> He commanded a brigade in the Confederate Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana in December 1862 and January 1863.<ref name="Eicher526"/> He fought in the Vicksburg Campaign, notably at the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou (Chickasaw Bluffs or Walnut Hills).<ref name="Warner303"/><ref name="Faust 753"/><ref name="Boatner835"/> During the siege of Vicksburg, Thomas and his regimental staff occupied Planters Hall, a building which survives and is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Thomas was captured in the fall of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, and was later exchanged.<ref name="Eicher526"/> After his parole, he brought Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton's report on the fall of Vicksburg to Richmond.<ref name="Warner303"/><ref name="Faust 753"/><ref name="Sifakis648"/><ref name="Boatner835"/> He then served in reorganizing paroled and exchanged prisoners.<ref name="Faust 753"/><ref name="Sifakis648"/> Thomas was promoted to brigadier general on February 4, 1864.<ref name="Eicher526"/><ref name="Sifakis648"/><ref name="Boatner835"/> He was assigned to the department of his brother-in-law, Lieutenant General Richard Taylor, at Alexandria, Louisiana, where he commanded a brigade of five Louisiana regiments and a battalion.<ref name="Warner303"/><ref name="Faust 753"/><ref name="Sifakis648"/>
From September 1864 to May 26, 1865—with the exception of March 17, 1865, to May 10, 1865, when he commanded the division of Major General Camille Armand Jules Marie, Prince de Polignac, during the latter's trip to France seeking help for the Confederacy from Napoleon III—Thomas commanded a brigade<ref>This brigade previously had been commanded by Brigadier General Henry Watkins Allen.</ref> in Polignac's division in the Confederate Army of the Trans-Mississippi.<ref name="Eicher526"/><ref name="Faust 753"/><ref name="Sifakis648"/>
Allen Thomas was paroled at Natchitoches, Louisiana, on June 8, 1865, and pardoned on July 19, 1865.<ref name="Eicher526"/><ref name="Faust 753"/>
==Aftermath== After the Civil War, Thomas returned to his plantation.<ref name="Faust 753"/><ref name="Boatner835"/> He became a professor of agriculture and member of the board of supervisors at Louisiana State University in 1882–1884.<ref name="Eicher526"/><ref name="Warner303"/><ref name="Faust 753"/> He was a Presidential elector in 1872 and 1880.<ref name="Warner303"/><ref name="Faust 753"/> Then he became coiner at the United States Mint at New Orleans.<ref name="Eicher526"/><ref name="Warner303"/> Thomas was nominated to run for Congress in 1876 but declined.<ref name="Warner303"/> In 1889, he moved to Florida.<ref name="Eicher526"/><ref name="Warner303"/><ref name="Faust 753"/> He was U.S. Minister to Venezuela from 1895 to 1897, succeeding Seneca Haselton.<ref name="Eicher526"/><ref name="Warner303"/><ref name="Faust 753"/><ref name="Boatner835"/>
Thomas moved to Waveland, Mississippi, where he had bought a plantation, in 1907 and died there on December 3, 1907.<ref name="Eicher526"/><ref name="Warner303"/><ref name="Faust 753"/> Allen Thomas was buried at Ascension Catholic Church Cemetery, Donaldsonville, Louisiana, in the family vault of his wife.<ref name="Eicher526"/><ref name="Warner303"/>
==See also== {{Portal|American Civil War|Biography}} *List of American Civil War generals (Confederate)
==Notes== {{Reflist}}
==References== * {{Civil War Dictionary}} * Eicher, John H., and David J. Eicher, ''Civil War High Commands.'' Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. {{ISBN|978-0-8047-3641-1}}. * Faust, Patricia L. "Thomas, Allen" in ''Historical Times Illustrated History of the Civil War'', edited by Patricia L. Faust. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. {{ISBN|978-0-06-273116-6}}. * 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}}.
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Allen}} Category:1830 births Category:1907 deaths Category:Confederate States Army brigadier generals Category:People of Louisiana in the American Civil War Category:People from Howard County, Maryland Category:People from Waveland, Mississippi Category:Burials at Ascension of our Lord Catholic Church Cemetery (Donaldsonville)