Thomas Welsh (general)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thomas Welsh (May 5, 1824 – August 14, 1863) was a soldier in the U.S. Army during the Mexican-American War and a brigadier general during the American Civil War.

Welsh was born in Columbia, Pennsylvania, and was educated in the town's common schools. He engaged in the lumber business before enlisting in the army to fight in the Mexican-American War, where he was wounded at the Battle of Buena Vista. Welsh received a promotion to lieutenant for gallantry. He returned to Columbia at the close of the war and served successively as a merchant, canal boat owner on the Pennsylvania Main Line, justice of the peace, and lock superintendent.

When the Civil War erupted, Welsh raised a company of volunteers from the region and was commissioned as its captain. He was soon elected lieutenant colonel of the 2nd Pennsylvania Infantry, a three-months regiment that served in the Shenandoah Valley. When his term of enlistment was over, Welsh was appointed by Governor Andrew Curtin as colonel of the 45th Pennsylvania, a three-years regiment, and led it during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign.

Welsh was assigned command of a brigade in the IX Corps of the Army of the Potomac. His men assaulted Confederate positions on South Mountain and at Antietam during the Maryland Campaign. His brigade served at the Battle of Fredericksburg, where Welsh's performance drew praises from his superiors. He was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers on March 13, 1863, and sent westward to Kentucky with the IX Corps, then on to Mississippi to serve under Ulysses S. Grant during the Siege of Vicksburg.

Welsh, now in command of the First Division, marched with Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman to Jackson, Mississippi, where Welsh contracted a malarial fever, from which he died in Cincinnati, Ohio, while travelling home. He was buried in Mount Bethel Cemetery in his native Columbia.

The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War named Post #118 in Columbia after Thomas Welsh.