CLIPPED AUTOGRAPH OF GENERAL THOMAS RUGER

$75.00 SOLD
Originally $100.00

Quantity Available: None

Item Code: L14567

Autograph is strongly written in ink in two lines that read “THOS. H. RUGER / BVT. MAJ. GEN. VOLS.” Paper clipping meas. approx. 3.50 x 1.25 inches.

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

On the outbreak of the Civil War Ruger was appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the 3rd Wisconsin Volunteers in June 1861, and promoted to Colonel on the following August 20. Ruger commanded his regiment in Maryland and the Shenandoah Valley campaigns. He participated in the Battle of Antietam, in which he was wounded while acting as commander of a brigade in the 1st Division, 12th Corps. Commissioned Brigadier General of Volunteers in November 1862, Ruger led his brigade of the 12th Corps 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 20th Corps in Major General William T. Sherman's Atlanta Campaign until November 1864, and with a division of 23rd Corps he 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 died in Stamford, Connecticut, and is buried in West Point National Cemetery in New York.

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