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T. H. Ruger
(1833 - 1907)
Home State: Wisconsin
Education: US Military Academy, West Point, NY, Class of 1854
Command Billet: Commanding Regiment
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 3rd Wisconsin Infantry
see his Battle Report
Before Antietam
Born in New York, he was appointed to West Point from Wisconsin in 1850, graduating 3rd in the class of 1854 and was brevetted 2nd Lieutenant of Engineers on 1 July. He served as an engineer in New Orleans, but resigned on 1 April 1855. Until the War he practiced law in Janesville, Wisconsin.
He was commissioned Lieutenant Colonel of the 3d Wisconsin Infantry on 29 June 1861 and its Colonel on 1 September 1861. He led them in the Shenandoah Valley, and in Northern Virginia in the campaigns of spring and summer 1862.
On the Campaign
He commanded the 3rd Wisconsin Infantry at the start of the Maryland Campaign but assumed command of the Brigade when Brigadier General Gordon took over the Division on 17 September 1862 at Antietam.
The rest of the War
He was promoted too Brigadier General on 29 November 1862, led a brigade in the Rappahannock campaign, and commanded a division at Gettysburg. He was in Tennessee to April 1864, led a brigade in Sherman's Georgia campaign to November, 1864, then a division of the 23d Corps in the campaign against General Hood's army in Tennessee - being cited by brevet for the battle of Franklin. He commanded a division in North Carolina til June 1865, and then had charge of the department of that state till June 1866, when he mustered out of Volunteer service.
After the War
He accepted a commission in the Regular Army as Colonel of the 33rd Infantry in July 1866, and served as provisional governor of Georgia (1868 - see his portrait), superintendent of the US Military Academy (1871-76), and had commands in the West. He was promoted to Brigadier General, USA, in 1886, and Major General in 1895. He retired from the Army on 2 April 1897.
References & notes
His service from Warner1 and Heitman,2 with details from Appleton's.3 His gravesite is on Findagrave. His picture from a photograph at the Library of Congress.
Birth
04/02/1833; Lima, NY
Death
06/03/1907; Stamford, CT; burial in United States Military Academy Post Cemetery, West Point, NY
1 Warner, Ezra J., Generals in Blue, Lives of the Union Commanders, Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1964 [AotW citation 29492]
2 Heitman, Francis Bernard, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army 1789-1903, 2 volumes, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1903, Vol. 1, pg. 850 [AotW citation 29493]
3 Fiske, John, and James Grant Wilson, editors, Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, 6 vols., New York City: D. Appleton and Company, 1887-1889 [AotW citation 29494]