William Holland Thomas-Greenhill Cemetery - Waynesville NC - Grave of a Famous Person on Waymarking.com

TEXT ON THE CIVIL WAR TRAIL HISTORICAL MARKER

Thomas's Resting Place-Greenhill Cemetery
Col. William Holland Thomas (February 5, 1805-May 10, 1893) is among the Confederate officers and soldiers buried here in Greenhill Cemetery. His grave is located about thirty yards in front of you on the right.

Thomas, who began trading with the Cherokee when he was sixteen, was the first and only white man to serve as a Cherokee chief and an influential figure in antebellum western North Carolina. He represented the Cherokee in the state capital and in Washington, D.C., to help establish the Qualla Boundary (the reservation for the Eastern Band of Cherokee). He organized Thomas’s Legion of Cherokee Indians and Mountaineers in Knoxville, Tennessee, for the Confederacy on September 27, 1862. The people of this area were sometimes referred to as highlanders, and local residents called Thomas’s unit the “Highland Rangers.” Thomas eventually recruited more than 2,000 officers and men, including two companies composed of 400 Cherokee. The unit fought in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia and largely prevented the Federal occupation of western North Carolina. Part of the Legion served in the final engagement of the war in North Carolina at Waynesville on May 6-7. Thomas surrendered the Legion to Union Col. William C. Bartlett on May 9.

The officers in Thomas’s Legion from this area included Col. William Stringfield, Col. James Robert Love II, Lt. Col. William C. Walker, and Capt. John T. Levi. Stringfield is buried here in Greenhill Cemetery.

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Capt. Alden Howell (February 18, 1841-March 19, 1947), a Haywood County native, is buried in Greenhill Cemetery. At the time of his death, there were 110 living Confederate veterans, but Howell was the last remaining Confederate officer. He enlisted in 1861 and served four years in the 16th North Carolina Infantry, Company B, rising to the rank of captain. After the war, Howell became a prominent Waynesville banker and landowner. Time magazine published his obituary on March 31, 1947; “Died, Captain Alden G. Howell, 106, who rode to war 86 years ago, saw Stonewall Jackson shot, lived to be the last surviving Confederate officer, oldest Mason in the U.S; in Los Angeles.”

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(lower left) Cherokee veterans of Thomas’s Legion at the 1903 Confederate Reunion in New Orleans. Courtesy The Mountaineer
(upper center) William H. Thomas Courtesy North Carolina Office of Archives and History
(upper right) Alden Howell Courtesy Mary E. Underwood, Faith of Our Fathers-Living Still

Description: From Wikipedia "When the Civil War broke out, Thomas organized a Legion of local Cherokees and whites to support the Confederacy. The 400 warriors he recruited formed two Cherokee companies; together with six companies of white men, many of whom were ethnic Scots-Irish, they comprised the Thomas' Legion of Cherokee Indians and Highlanders. It operated as an independent command directly under the Confederate Army's Department of East Tennessee. The Legion operated primarily in East Tennessee and Western North Carolina, except for a short period when they were deployed to the Shenandoah Valley. Thomas' Legion was defeated at battles such as the Battle of Fisher's Hill and the Battle of Cedar Creek while deployed in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864. By May 1865, the main Confederate armies has surrendered and Union soldiers controlled Waynesville and the rest of Western North Carolina. On May 6, 1865, Thomas' Legion fired "The Last Shot" of the Civil War east of the Mississippi River in an action at White Sulphur Springs, North Carolina. After his legion captured Waynesville, they voluntarily ceased hostilities upon learning of General Robert E. Lee's surrender and the end of the war. Colonel Thomas and his Legion guarded the mountains surrounding Waynesville. During the night of May 5, 1865, they built hundreds of campfires to make the Union garrison think that thousands of Cherokee and Confederates were about to attack them. The Cherokee punctuated the nights with "chilling war whoops" and "hideous yells," according to a Union report, firing occasional shots to improve the effect. The next morning Thomas and about 20 Cherokee entered Waynesville under a flag of truce to demand the surrender of the garrison. The Union troops did so. On May 9, 1865, however, a Union officer told Thomas that General Robert E. Lee had surrendered his army one month earlier, and the colonel agreed to lay down his arms. The Civil War was over, and the last shots in North Carolina were those fired in Waynesville." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Holland_Thomas Date of birth: 02/05/1805 Date of death: 05/10/1893 Area of notoriety: Military Marker Type: Headstone Setting: Outdoor Visiting Hours/Restrictions: Sunrise to Sujnset Fee required?: No Web site: [Web Link]

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Date Logged Log   04/29/2023 Don.Morfe visited it