Kentucky’s Civil War Leaders
T.T. Garrard personally recruited
eight Union infantry companies

(EDITOR’S NOTE:  This is the 11^th in a series about Kentucky officers and battle leaders during the Civil War.)

Union Brig. Gen. Theophilus Toulmin Garrard, a native of Clay County, was authorized, as a colonel of the Seventh Kentucky Infantry, to raise a regiment of infantry at the outbreak of the Civil War.

He personally recruited eight companies – two each from Clay, Laurel, Knox and Whitley Counties. Garrard commanded the Seventh Kentucky at the Battle of Camp Wildcat and a detachment of men at Perryville who had not participated in the Battle of Richmond.

On Nov. 29, 1862, Garrard was promoted to brigadier general and served in Arkansas until January 1864, when he was placed in command of a mixed brigade of infantry and cavalry posted at Cumberland Gap. He was discharged in April of that year, apparently due to loss of central vision in his left eye.

Born near Manchester, he was a grandson of Kentucky Gov. James Garrard and a cousin of Israel, Jeptha and Kenner Garrard. His first wife died just five days after their wedding and his marriage to Lucinda Burnham Lees in 1849 resulted in 11 children, six boys and five girls.

Garrard, who attended Centre College, was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1843 and re-elected in 1844. He served in the Mexican War as an infantry captain and left the state in 1849 to participate in the California Gold Rush.

Returning to Kentucky the following year, Garrard was elected to the Kentucky Senate in 1857 and elected again in 1861, but declined to serve as he had received his commission as a Union colonel.

Garrard spent the remainder of his life in Clay County, farming and operating the Union Salt Works, which he rebuilt after it was burned by Union troops during the war. He died March 15, 1902 in the same home in which he was born and was buried in the family cemetery.