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- Thomas A. Morris a West Point graduate and assistant engineer on the National Road constructed through Indiana and Illinois: militia commander during the first three months of the Civil War with the rank of brigadier general; superintendent of the Madison & Indianapolis Railroad: president of the Indianapolis Water Company; a founding corporator of the Crown Hill Cemetery.
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- Morris, Thomas Armstrong, soldier, b. in Nicholas county, Ky, 26 Dec., 1811. He was graduated at the US military academy in 1834, resigned in 1836 to follow the profession of civil engineering, and was appointed in that year resident engineer of canals and railroads in the state of Indiana. He was chief engineer of two railroads in 1847-'52, engineer in 1852-'4, and president in 1854-'7 of the Indianapolis and Cincinnati railroad, and president of the Indianapolis, Pittsburg and Cleveland railroad in 1859-'61. In April, 1861, he was appointed brigadier-general by the governor of Indiana, and served in the West Virginia campaign of that year, but, declining the commissions of brigadier-general and major-general of volunteers, he was mustered out of service in July, 1861. He then resumed the office of chief engineer of the Indianapolis and Cincinnati railroad, was president to the Indianapolis and St. Louis railroad in 1867-'70, and in 1870-;3 was receiver of the Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Lafayette railroad.
Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, 1600-1889, v.IV, page 419.
- Gen. T.A. Morris Is Dead In California
Pioneer and distinguished citizen of this city
His long and active life
News has been received of the death, yesterday, of Gen. Thomas Armstrong Morris, in a dispatch from the general’s daughter, Mrs. Eleanor Morris Chambers, to Admiral George Brown. He died at his daughter’s home at San Diego, Cal., whither he had gone to spend in restful quiet the last days of a life that had been prolonged far beyond four-score years.
He was born in Nicholas county, Kentucky, December 26, 1811. He was ten years old when he removed with his father, Morris Morris, to Indianapolis. This journey was by horses and wagon through trackless forests, and he was the last of the pioneers. In 1822 he began to learn the printer’s trade on a paper called the Western Censor and Emigrant’s Guide. This paper later came to be the Indianapolis Journal.
After four years at the printer’s trade, being then nineteen years old, he was appointed a cadet of West Point. He was graduated in 1834, standing fourth in a class of thirty-six, in which for a time the erratic poet Edgar Allen Poe, was a member. He was then brevetted a second lieutenant of the First Artillery in the regular army.
Work as an Engineer
After a year’s service at Fortress Monroe, Va., and in Florida, he was sent by the War Department to assist Major Monroe, of the engineer corps, in constructing the National road in Indiana and Illinois. After one year of this work he resigned from the United States services. He then took charge of the construction of the Central canal.
From 1841 to 1847 he was chief engineer of the Madison & Indianapolis railroad; from 1847 to 1852 of the Vandalia between Indianapolis and Terre Haute, and of the Bee line, now the Big Four, between Indianapolis and Bellefontaine. From 1852 to 1954 he was chief engineer of the Indianapolis & Cincinnati road. From 1854 to 1857 he was president of the last-named road; from 1857 to 1859 was president of the Indianapolis & Bellefontaine road, and from 1959 to 1861 chief engineer of the Indianapolis & Cincinnati road.
When the civil war broke out he commanded the first brigade of troops that went from Indiana, and after conducting the three months’ campaign in West Virginia with marked ability, was mustered out of service July 27, 1861. He had received the assurance that he would be made a major-general, but this appointment which was withheld fourteen months, he declined.
State House Commissioner
He returned to his business of railroad construction and management, in which he continued until near 1877 when he was appointed one of the commissioners for the building of the present State House. Nearly half a century before his father had held a like position for the building of the first State House erected in Indianapolis.
After the completion of the State House, in 1888, he became president of the Indianapolis Water Company, a position he held at his death. He recently resigned his position as life trustee of the Consumers’ Gas Trust Company. It has been many times remarked that no man in Indiana has had a life of so long continued activity and that it had fallen to his lot to be the first in more enterprises of different kinds, and all of public importance, than usually falls to the lot of any one person.
His knowledge as an engineer, his thorough mastery of any subject that engaged his mind made him specially valuable as the president of the board of commissioners in the construction of the State Capitol. All these commissioners deserved and received praise, but to the domination of General Morris is due the result, a State House built in accordance with all the requirements of the board, and within the appropriation made by the State.
Army Promotion Promise Unkept
It was always felt that General Morris had been ill-used, that the promotion he deserved had been delayed until he could not in justice to himself accept, and that his services during the years of the civil war following the three months’ campaign had been lost to the country through promotions of those who were less able and less deserving, but who made themselves felt at court.
On this subject Morris Ross of The News, nephew of General Morris, said;
“On Sunday, May 1, 1898, Uncle Thomas said to me, in speaking of the war, that the reasons he had been silent were many. He had fought the West Virginia campaign, had met an army the size of his own, had broken it up and scattered it utterly in three months, and would have done it in less time if McClellan had let him. The soldiers who were with him and the officers thought he had made a success. He himself thought he had. In view of this an appointment was promised him.
“He spent an evening with Mr. Lincoln, who promised him an appointment. He went home and waited a year, and then an appointment of the grade he had give up in the three months’ service, a brigadier-generalship, was tendered him. This he felt, he could not accept. A long time after that a major-generalship was tendered him, but it was a junior commission and he had lost his chance during the time he had been waiting. He felt that it was not meant he should accept either one.
Reason for Silence.
During all this time he never opened his mouth to any one: never asked my one to get him an appointment. He carried himself thus because he wanted to feel that it it was meant he should go into the army it would come in such a way as to demonstrate itself. His wife was sorely afflicted; his children were young; his father and mother, who lived with him, were old; much was depending on him in life; he felt that God had meant him to recognize his obligations in life, and he did not know whether that same power meant he should serve the country first or the family in which he found himself.
“And so he allowed himself to drift in the hope that they would assert themselves in such a way as to make his duty clear. For this reason he made no effort, feeling that God would guide matters so as to make his duty plain. He believes influences at Washington and here worked against him, but he did not assert himself or try to combat them for the reasons named.”
General Morris was married in 1844 to Miss Rachel Irwin, of Madison, who died several years ago. Soon after their marriage he built the old-fashioned brick house which now fronts in New Jersey street, near Twelfth street, but which, until a few years ago, stood near the center of twenty acres of farm and garden, orchard, vineyard and forest, around which on every side the city had grown.
The general had held the property together until after the death of his wife, when it was subdivided and is now covered by beautiful homes. The First Friends’ church stands on the western edge of this property in North Alabama street.
Aged Hunter and Fisherman.
General Morris even after he had passed his eighty-fifth year continued to hunt and fish. He was a thorough sportsman, his knowledge of woodcraft having been received when Indiana was covered with thick forests, and the red men were yet in the woods, and frequent visitors to the little town of Indianapolis.
He was the oldest member of the Second Presbyterian church of this city, he the late Simon Yandes and W.H. Hubbard having been among the near friends of Henry ward Beecher when he preached in this city. It was during Mr. Beecher’s ministry here that General Morris became a member of the Second Presbyterian church.
He leaves three children, Thomas O. Morris, who has recently gone to Colorado to do constructive engineering for a railroad; Mrs. Eleanor Morris Chambers, of San Diego, Cal., and Milton A. Morris, of this city. The burial will be in the family lot at Crown Hill cemetery.
The Indianapolis News, Indianapolis, Indiana. Thursday, 24 March 1904.
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1811 - 1904 (92 years)
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