Colonel Thomas T. Munford and the last cavalry operations of the Civil War in Virginia

Abstract

Thomas Taylor Munford served as a Colonel with the Second Virginia Cavalry during the Civil War. A graduate of Virginia Military Institute and a veteran of First and Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, Gettysburg and Five Forks, Munford lacked only the official approval of the Confederate Congress to receive his commission as a Brigadier General. The war ended before the Congress could grant his rank. Munford's account of the battle of Five Forks and the last cavalry operations of the Civil War in Virginia is a vivid and pathetic description of the final days of the Confederacy. Its importance and historical value result from the fact that it is a substantial narrative of Five Forks by an officer who actually participated in the battle. It delineates the failure of leadership that plaguedthe Confederate military the last two years of the war and attributed to the demise of the Confederacy. It is also an important record of the activities of the Confederate Cavalry in the last days of the Civil War.