Son of Henry Thomas and Elizabeth Garnett.
Attended Virginia Military Institute 1843-1844 before resigning; attended and graduated from University of Virginia as physician 1850.
Married Emma Lavinia Baber of "Spy Hill" in Tetotum, King George County, Va. in 1848.
Enlisted in the U.S. Army, 1st Virginia Regiment, to serve in the Mexican War. Practiced medicine in Bowling Green, Va. throughout the 1850s.

Residence Bowling Green, Caroline County, Va.; a 36 year-old physician.
Enlisted on 5/25/1861 at Westmoreland County, VA, he was commissioned into "C" Co. VA 9th Cavalry as a Captain.
He was discharged for promotion on 6/27/1861; commissioned into Field & Staff VA 48th Infantry as Lt. Colonel.

Upon his wife's losing 2 brothers at Sharpsburg/Antietam, Md. he wrote her:"Few can escape the perils of the battlefield. He who falls today is only a few hours before him who will fall tommorrow. We have the same troops to fight with day after day and it really is a matter of chance who falls first…Yet this is a war which requires the sacrifice and while the men are ready to pay it in their blood, the loved ones at home must be the Spartan Matrons to yield themselves willingly. These young men over whose memory the tears of love and sympathy will freely flow have died at the post of honor and will receive as they deserve the praise of the country and I believe in this holy cause, the honor of Heaven…If no one was killed of course no battles would be fought and we would tamely submit to rapine, arson and all the horrors which follow the fiery track of war. Use your accustomed fortitude then in submitting with calmness and faith in God to this affliction and to any other which may happen in the future."

Promoted to Colonel 4/2/1863.
Mortally wounded in the Battle of Chancellorsville, VA.; shot in throat.
On the way to a Richmond hospital, he survived long enough to write his family "I am mortally wounded. I know the nature of these things."

The 48th Infantry Regiment, organized at Big Spring, near Abingdon, Virginia, in September, 1861, contained men from Scott, Washington, Smyth, Lee, and Russell counties. It suffered 103 casualties at Chancellorsville.

Thomas S Garnett