Stephen Decatur Thruston

After three years at the University of Virginia (-1853), he graduated from medical school in Philadelphia. He then practiced in Wilmington, North Carolina.

On 18 May 1861 he was appointed Captain, Company B, 3rd North Carolina Infantry. He was senior Captain in the regiment and was promoted Major to date from 1 July 1862.

He assumed command of the Regiment after Colonel de Rosset was hit at Sharpsburg. He himself "received a painful contusion [in the chest by a shell], but did not leave the field." (DH Hill Report)

He was promoted Lieutenant Colonel in March 1863, to date from 10 December 1862. At Chancellorsville on 3 May 1863 he commanded the Regiment and briefly led the Brigade as senior officer, and was slightly wounded in the foot. He was made Colonel of the Third Infantry on 2 October 1863. He was wounded in the left lung in action at Spotylvania Court House, VA on 10 May 1864, and shot through the hips at Winchester on 19 September 1864. He returned to duty in January 1865, and was assigned to court martial duty in February. He was hospitalized in Raleigh and "permanently disabled" by 10 April 1865.

After the war Dr. Thruston moved to Dallas, Texas, and resumed the practice of medicine. He was a charter member of the Dallas Medical Society, organized in 1884. He was active in veteran's affairs, later an officer in the Sterling Price Camp, Confederate Veterans, in Dallas.

Biographical details from G.P. Reds' The Medicine Man in Texas (1930), posted online by the Texas Medical Center Library, Krick,1 and North Carolina Troops.2

11/28/1833; Gloucester County, VA

11/15/1906; Dallas, TX; burial in Greenwood Cemetery, Dallas, TX