Lunsford L. Lomax

Lunsford Lindsay Lomax (November 4, 1835 – May 28, 1913) was the fourth president of Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and an officer in the United States Army who resigned his commission to join the Confederate Army at the outbreak of the American Civil War. He had maintained a close friendship with his West Point classmate Fitzhugh Lee, and served under him as a brigadier in the Overland Campaign. He was then given command of the Valley District, where he supervised intelligence-gathering operations by Mosby's Rangers.

Early and family life Born in Newport, Rhode Island, on November 4, 1835, to the former Elizabeth Virginia Lindsay (1800-after 1860) and her husband, Major Mann Page Lomax (1787-1842), Lunsford Lomax was descended from the First Families of Virginia. His father was a career U.S. Army officer, specializing in artillery, who had served in New Orleans during the War of 1812, and married in 1820 during his leave in Norfolk, Virginia. He was named for his great grandfather, Lunsford Lomax (1705-1772) of "Portabago" plantation in Caroline County, who also served part-time in the Virginia House of Burgesses from 1742 until 1756 representing that county before the American Revolutionary War. His grandfather Thomas Lomax (1750-1835) served on the Caroline County Committee of Safety during the Revolutionary War and later in the Virginia House of Delegates. His father died of tuberculosis in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when Lomax was seven. His mother raised him and his five sisters in Norfolk, but by 1860 the Lomax womenfolk (his sisters remaining unmarried) had moved to Washington, D.C.

After a private education, Lomax received an "at-large" appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He graduated in 1856

U.S. Army career Assigned to the prestigious 2nd Cavalry regiment, Lomax fought on the frontier and served in Bleeding Kansas during the years immediately preceding the conflict.

American Civil War Lomax resigned from the army in April 1861, and shortly thereafter accepted a captain's commission in the Virginia state militia. Initially assigned to Joseph E. Johnston's staff as assistant adjutant general, Lomax later served as inspector general for Benjamin McCulloch. Promoted to lieutenant colonel, he was transferred back to the Eastern Theater.

Appointed colonel of the 11th Virginia Cavalry He continued contact with Jubal Early, and months after the death of former Confederate President Jefferson Davis, vehemently objected to his daughter Winnie's proposed marriage to Alfred Wilkinson, a New Yorker whose father had been an abolitionist.

Lomax later became a clerk in the War Department assembling and editing the Official Records of the war and was for a time commissioner of Gettysburg National Park.

Death and legacy

Lomax died May 28, 1913, and was buried in Warrenton, Virginia.