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SIXTH PLATE RUBY AMBROTYPE OF THOMAS H. BOMAR, CAPTAIN CHESTATEE LIGHT ARTILLERY AND MAJOR 38th GEORGIA

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Thomas Hayne Bomar had an interesting war record. While commanding the Chestatee Light Artillery in June 1863 he saw his first fighting as part of the Confederate forces vainly trying to counter the Combahee River Raid in South Carolina, conducted under the guidance, if not the leadership, of Harriet Tubman. In October 1864, after a promotion to Major, fighting at Cold Harbor, Monocacy, and engagements in the Shenandoah, he was captured at Cedar Creek, “where, in command of the rear guard on the extreme left of General Gordon's line,” according to A History of Central and Western Texas, “he held the enemy in check until the greater part of the general's command had passed safely across the celebrated Stone Bridge.” This goes on to claim, “General John B. Gordon, in an informal reception given him at the Pecos Valley Bank, Pecos, Texas, spoke of Major Bomar in the following highly complimentary manner: ‘There goes one of the bravest men I ever saw.’" Coming from a soldier with Gordon’s combat record, that is high praise indeed, if accurately reported.

This from-life sixth-plate ruby ambrotype of Bomar in his Georgia Military Institute full-dress uniform is securely identified by a period CDV copy of this same photograph in the Vaughn collection published in Military Images 2004, in “Remembering Georgia’s Confederates,” and on the cover of Volume 1 of “A Season in the Life of a Confederate Soldier,” a history of the Chestatee Light Artillery. That CDV, noted as by Dill and Maier of Atlanta, is undated, but likely a copy to permit wider distribution among friends, family and perhaps former army comrades. How early Dill and Maier were in business is unclear, but in 1868 and 1869 they were selling photographic portraits of notable Georgians.

The image is glassed, matted and framed, and is now housed in a period brown thermoplastic photographic case with raised geometric and foliate motifs. The velvet facing pad is present, though loose, and inside the back of the case is the paper label of maker A.P. Critchlow & Co. with 1856 copyright notice for his patent riveted hinges. This label bears some period pencil notations regarding another, unrelated, image once housed in the case, likely used at some point by a collector to replace a damaged or lesser quality original.

Bomar is shown seated in full-dress triple breasted cadet uniform, with epaulets, wearing a waistbelt showing decorative stitching and a rectangular belt plate that is somewhat indistinct but to some here seems to show a US eagle with outstretched wings indicating a M1851 sword belt plate. His lower cuffs show three lines of cording, pointing down, with a button at each point. On his elbows he wears a large set of chevrons, with three stripes pointing up and three lower stripes as well, though in what shape is unclear. If in an arc, they may indicate an Adjutant in the cadet corps; if in straight stripes, a Quartermaster: assuming GMI was following the USMA 1830 regulations. Bomar is identified as a “Cadet Lieutenant” in the 2004 MI article, whether because of this insignia or something else is unclear, but he was certainly an officer in the cadet corps.

He rests one arm on a table beside him, on which is prominently displayed his shako with tall, feathered plume and showing clearly on its front an eagle with spread wings over the three-columned classical portico of the Georgia state seal. The image shows some wipes and rubs, with some loss of emulsion on his chest at left, a smaller spot at right, and another patch just at the left of his face, with small, narrow portions on the left side of his face and upper right at the hairline, and the image has a gray tone, retaining the small gold touches made to his buttons by the photographic artist. The content, however, more than compensates for the condition, and although the CDV version of the image was made before losses to the image, it lacks some detail, such as the decorative stitching on his waistbelt, and the ambrotype is clearly the from-life view, and likely descended directly in the family.

Thomas H. Bomar was born in Macon, GA, Nov. 4, 1842, son of Dr. Benjamin Bomar, a physician who became Atlanta's second mayor and in 1860 listed himself as clerk of the superior court. The younger Bomar was educated at the Georgia Military Institute, founded in Marietta in 1851, and employing a half-dozen or so instructors in charge of some 150-200 students in a four-year course of study modeled on that of West Point, providing a solid military background, but also education in mathematics, engineering, etc. Bomar was eighteen when the war started, and reportedly a senior, which would date his entry to the school to 1857. In the 1860 census he is a “military student.” Like many of the cadets he probably acted as an instructor in drill and tactics for new militia and volunteer companies as the war opened 1861.

Likely graduating in June, in September 1861 he organized a company of volunteers, mainly from Dawson and Forsyth counties, who elected him Captain. The company officially mustered into Confederate service a month later, on October 13 (the date given as Bomar’s enlistment,) 59 strong, and was one of two light artillery companies in the Wright Legion, a combined arms organization of 13 infantry and artillery companies. Newspaper articles indicate both were to be armed with “Rushton’s breech loading rifled gun,” though it is unclear how far that was carried into effect and at what point they finally received cannon of any sort. Plans to send the Legion to Manassas were changed and on November 16 the company departed for Savannah, where they received gun carriages on Nov. 20, but apparently still no cannon and were drilled for some time as infantry as well as artillery with what material was available.

In early June 1862 the two artillery companies remained in Savannah, presumably having by then received their cannon, to help defend the city, while the infantry companies of the legion, by then designated the 38^th Regiment, were sent to Virginia. Bomar’s company would be posted at several locations in the Savannah area through March 1863, constructing fortifications, guarding rail lines, etc. Many, if not all, of their posts must have been in small gun emplacements or batteries: in June Bomar requested 40 artillery short swords for defense of his works in case of sudden attack.

The company was transferred in March 1863 to South Carolina, where they were posted to low-lying coastal lands to protect rail lines and guard against river-borne incursions. They got their first taste of fighting in June in a small but significant series of fights on the Combahee River, when three Union vessels carrying some 300 members of the black U.S. 2^nd S.C. Infantry and a company of Rhode Island heavy artillery sailing from Beaufort carried out a raid that destroyed several plantations, mills, some eight-to-ten thousand of bushels of rice, and freed some 600-800 slaves, led by Col. James Thompson, but inspired, guided, and accompanied by Harriet Tubman, who was familiar with the area.

Confederate reports blamed some of their own poor performance on the scattering or withdrawal of troops to avoid the sickness and disease-ridden, low-lying swampy areas. This was a major problem for Bomar, who later reported roughly two-thirds of his company incapacitated in August and the remainder overwhelmed in caring for their comrades and the battery’s horses and mules. By October he was pleading for exchange with another artillery company or transfer of it to cavalry or light infantry duty. Some relief was offered in November when they were transferred to Sullivan’s Island, to take part in the defense of Charleston until May 1864, serving in Battery Bee and in two of the “2-gun batteries,” Numbers 3 and 4, which were placed along the line between larger fortifications, and where they seem to have been serving heavy guns.

In May 1864 Bomar and the company finally rejoined the regiment, serving in Gordon’s brigade, Early’s division, and Ewell’s Corps in Virginia. Not only had the regiment suffered heavy casualties in Bomar’s absence, those losses had made him senior Captain, and thus in line to fill the vacancy of Major. He was appointed to that rank in April 1864, confirmed in May, and his muster and effective rank was then appropriately backdated to the vacancy as created in July 1863. He may have been aware something was in the works quite early: the company had received 80 sets of infantry accoutrements in March 1864, before leaving South Carolina.

Bomar and the company reached the regiment in the immediate aftermath of Spottsylvania and reportedly saw action on the North Anna at Hanover Junction on May 23. He seems to have assumed command of the regiment in time to lead it at Cold Harbor, where it lost some 26 men, about half of them in his old company. His record then follows that of the regiment in taking part in Early’s campaign against Hunter at Lynchburg, the pursuit of Hunter and subsequent taking of Martinsburg and Winchester. Five companies of the regiment were left there for a time on provost duty, but Bomar, and his old company, were part of the regiment as it entered Maryland, fought at Monocacy, where he was still in command of the regiment, threatened Washington, and then moved into the Shenandoah where, having been rejoined by their five detached companies, they took part in defeating Crook at Kernstown on July 24, and then campaigning around Bunker Hill, Fisher’s Hill, and Winchester, fighting at Third Winchester (Opequon) and Fisher’s Hill in September, and finally at Cedar Creek in October, when Early came close to regaining the initiative in the Valley.

After his capture at Cedar Creek, Bomar was confined at Fort Delaware, where he remained until August 1865, among a small group who gained some sympathy in southern households by refusing to take the Oath of Allegiance to gain their freedom, though apparently as part of a plan to get to Mexico and perhaps carry on the war from there. By August, however, reality had set in, Bomar signed and was released. A 1927 obituary reported that, “on coming out of prison he was selected as the ‘raggedest Confederate of them all,’ and as such was the first to be provided with new clothes by women who had undertaken the work of clothing released prisoners.” Needless to say, it would have been a surprising contrast to his elegant appearance in this image. He returned to Atlanta, tried his hand at running his own school, opening the “North End Academy,” but by 1870 had switched to civil engineering, working for several different railroads in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. By 1880 he was in Spartanburg, SC, but by 1900 was in Texas, where he listed himself as a real estate salesman in 1910, certainly in connection with the Bomar Land Company, and a bookkeeper in 1920. He seems to have married twice, having a daughter with his second wife, Mary. He died in Pecos, TX, in March 1927, leaving behind a wonderful ambrotype.    [sr][ph:L]

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