Thomas M. Harris, Civil War Papers and Artifacts, 1861-1906 , A&M 0080

West Virginia and Regional History Center

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Staff of the West Virginia & Regional History Center

Abstract

Papers and artifacts of General Thomas M. (Mealey) Harris (1817-1906) who served with the 10th West Virginia Infantry and the Army of West Virginia during the Civil War. He was also a member of the military commission in the trial of the Abraham Lincoln assassination conspirators in 1865. Letters, commissions, reports, a photograph, and newspaper clippings chiefly relate to Harris's military service in the 1860s. Items include military commissions; letters from 1862 about Harris's service in what is now West Virginia; Harris's official reports of the Civil War battles at Winchester and Cedar Creek in 1864 and Hatcher's Run in 1865; letters from 1892 about Harris's book on the Lincoln assassination conspirators; and copies of Harris's 1906 obituary. Box 1 contains two oversize military appointments, remnants of the flag from the 10th West Virginia Infantry, the epaulets and sash from Harris's uniform, and his ring.

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Preferred Citation

[Description and date of item], [Box/folder number], Thomas M. Harris, Civil War Papers and Artifacts, A&M 0080, West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown, West Virginia.

Biographical / Historical

Thomas Mealey Harris was born on June 17, 1817, in Wood County, Virginia (now West Virginia). He practiced medicine in the state before the Civil War. In late 1861, Harris recruited for the 10th West Virginia Infantry. He was appointed its lieutenant colonel and then in May 1862, its colonel. In the summer of 1864 Harris commanded a brigade in the Army of West Virginia and in the fall he commanded a division during the 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign. He was brevetted brigadier general during that time and accorded full rank in March 1865. Harris's division was attached to the Army of the James and served from Petersburg, Virginia, to Appomattox in the spring of 1865. After the war Harris served on the military commission that tried the Abraham Lincoln assassination conspirators.

Gen. Harris served one term in the West Virginia legislature, was adjutant general of the state from 1869 to 1870, and was a pension agent at Wheeling, West Virginia from 1871 to 1877. He practiced medicine and produced several publications, including his account of the Lincoln conspirators' trial, Assassination of Lincoln (1892). He died in Harrisville on September 30, 1906.