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Left: Wedding Portrait of Rachael Myers and John Wesley Thomas (1870)
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John Wesley Thomas John Wesley Thomas (1842-1893), husband of Rachael Catherine Myers (1850-1906), fought bravely and with honor during the War Between the States in Company I (Alabama Foresters) of the 12th Alabama Infantry. Because the 12th Alabama was merged with Lee's Army of Northern Virgina, Wesley saw action in some of the most famous and bloody battles of the war--Seven Pines, Sharpsburg (Antietam), Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. |
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Left: Muster roll for Co. I, 12th Ala. Infantry, April, 1864, showing Wesley's promotion to sergeant from private, following the battle of Chancellorsville in May of the previous year. Wesley was hospitalized at least four times at a hospital in Richmond, Virgina during his service. One of these was for a gunshot wound to the head received at Chancellorsville in May of 1863. In April, 1864, Wesley received a promotion from Private to Sergeant for bravery. Wesley was among only 50 remaining members of the 12th at Appomatox Court House when Lee surrendered to General Grant in April of 1865. After the surrender, Wesley and the other soldiers were taken prisoner briefly and transferred to an internment camp in Maryland where he and the others signed Oaths of Allegiance to the United States before returning to Alabama. After returning to his home in Eight Mile Station, near Mobile, Wesley sought work with the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. Tragically, he lost an arm during his first day on the job, but he remained with the railroad for many years despite this setback.
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Left: Index card showing that Wesley became a prisoner of war with the rest of his company after Lee's surrender at Appomattox (April 9, 1865). Five years after the war's end in 1870, Wesley married Rachael Myers, the oldest daughter of David L. and Jane Myers (wedding photo above). However, this was not Wesley's first association with the Myers family. Wesley and his sister were orphaned during their teens and, in 1858, David Louis Myers, together with his brothers, put up a security bond, as noted in Mobile Probate Court records, to become a legal guardian of the pair. For 20 years, Wesley Thomas also served as a law officer for the communities of Eight Mile and Whistler. It was in this capacity that he lost his life in 1893 while trying to serve a warrant, unarmed, on two suspects in the town of Whistler. The murder of Wesley Thomas was a significant news event that summer, with lengthy and detailed accounts running for several weeks in the Mobile newspapers, regarding both the murder and the hunt for and capture of the suspects. (For excerpts from the news accounts of the day, click here.) Rachael Myers Thomas |
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Left: Rachael Myers Thomas (about 1890)
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Rachael Myers Thomas was the oldest daughter of David Louis Myers and Jane McInnis Myers. Rachael was born in Perry County, MS in 1850, where the family resided before David Myers and his wife had decided to join his parents and two brothers in Alabama. Rachael and Wesley were founding and active members of the "Little Church in the Pines" during the 1870s, the first Methodist-Episcopal church in Eight Mile. Rachael bore Wesley four children who lived to maturity, two boys--John Wesley jr. and Joshua Grace--and two girls--Caroline ("Carrie") and Margaret ("Maggie"). Rachael Myers Thomas died in 1906 as a result of a neck injury she received when the horse pulling her buggy was spooked by a passing baby carriage. Both Wesley and Rachael Thomas lie in unmarked graves at Myers Cemetery. |
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Left: Carrie Thomas and Maggie Thomas (?) about 1883.
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