Pre-printed commission on vellum filled out in ink for Colonel Thomas H. Ruger appointing him a Brigadier General for “gallant and meritorious actions in the battle of Gettysburg.”

Commission is in a modern mat and frame that meas. approx. 17.00 x 21.00 inches. Document has the usual spread-winged eagle in a cloud at top and panoply of flags at bottom. Document is filled in with ink that has paled and is difficult to read but it can be done.

The date of the commission is dated 8 April 1867 and bears the signatures of President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Both signatures are printed and not done by hand. President Johnson hurt his arm in a fall not long after taking office and most of his commissions have printed signatures. Stanton seems to have followed Johnson’s example.

The overall condition of the document is very good. It is clean and bright with the printed wording being very clear. There is also a blue government seal still attached at top left. The document also has one vertical and five horizontal fold lines.

Thomas Howard Ruger was born April 2, 1833 in Lima, New York, and moved to Janesville, Wisconsin in 1846. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1854, third in his class of forty-six, and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He resigned in 1855 to become a lawyer in Wisconsin.

Ruger was appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the 3rd Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment in June 1861, and promoted to Colonel on August 20. He commanded his regiment in Maryland and the Shenandoah Valley campaigns. He participated in the Battle of Antietam, in which he was wounded while acting commander of a brigade in the 1st Division, 12^th Corps. Commissioned Brigadier General of Volunteers in November 1862, Ruger led his brigade of the 12^th Corps, Army of the Potomac, in the Battle of Chancellorsville, and commanded the division of Brig. Gen. Alpheus Williams temporarily at Gettysburg. In the summer of 1863, Ruger was in New York City, where he aided in suppressing draft riots.

Ruger led a brigade of the 20^th Corps in Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's Atlanta Campaign until November 1864, and with a division of the 23^rd Corps took part in the campaign against General John B. Hood's army in Tennessee. He was appointed a Brevet Major General of Volunteers, November 30, 1864, for services at the Battle of Franklin. Ruger organized a division at Nashville and led his command to North Carolina in June 1865, and then had charge of the department of that state until June 1866. He was mustered out of his volunteer commission, accepting a regular army commission as Colonel, July 28, 1866, and on March 2, 1867, was Brevetted Brigadier General, Regular Army, for his services at Gettysburg.

Ruger participated in Reconstruction as the military governor of Georgia and in the Freedmen's Bureau in Alabama in 1868. He was the Superintendent of the United States Military Academy from 1871 to 1876. Other commands he held were the Department of the South (1876-78), the Infantry and Cavalry School of Application (1885-86), the Department of Dakota (1886-91), the Military Division of the Pacific (1891), the Department of California (1891-94), the Military Division of the Missouri (1894-95) and the Department of the East (1895-97). In 1887 Ruger led the army's expedition into the Big Horn Mountains during the Crow War. He retired, in 1897, with the rank of Major General in the Regular Army.

He was a Veteran Companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States and an Honorary Companion of the Military Order of Foreign Wars.

He died in Stamford, Connecticut, and is buried in West Point National Cemetery.

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