Miami Union

April 14, 1910 

THOMAS, STANLEY O. - Veteran - Civil War - Confederate Army under Gen. Dick Taylor

Stanley O. Thomas was born in Troy, November 25, 1835.  He was the son of William I. and Lucinda Neale Thomas.  His early life was spent in Troy and he was one of the brightest members of the high school, though he did not complete the course of study.  He read law in the office of his father and was admitted to the bar in 1858.  That year he went to Natches, Mississippi, and began the successful practice of his profession and soon was elected to the office of district attorney.  When the southern states began seceding in 1861, he was arrayed on the side of the Union, but cast his fortunes with his adopted state when the legislature passed the act of secession and entered the Confederate army as officer of an artillery company. Most of his service was with the western army under command of General Dick Taylor, though in the beginning he took part in campaigns in Kentucky and Tennessee.  At the close of the Civil war he returned to Natches and resumed the practice of law and assumed a high place in his profession.  In 1870 he was married to Miss Louise Carroll of New Orleans and the same year moved to the Southern Metropolis and embarked in business as a cotton factor, in which he was immensely successful, quickly becoming an important figure in the business life of his new home and wielded a large and beneficial influence with his fellow citizens, reaching the highest honor in the presidency of the famous Cotton Exchange of New Orleans.  He was deservedly popular for his many natural gifts of heart and mind.  He possessed a brilliant intellect that early found expression upon the stump in the Fremont-Buchanan campaign of 1856, when he won the sobriquet of the "Boy Orator."  The cares of an active business life did not eradicate his love of reading and study and he was always a safe and reliable authority on the current literature of the day and passing events were subject of keen criticism and just analysis to his latest hour.  He was highly successful in business and accumulated a large fortune which he spent with a lavish generosity not often characteristic of the rich and made glad the hearts of those who were near and dear to him.  He passed away at his home in New Orleans, the morning of April 7, leaving a large circle of friends to mourn the death of one of Nature's noblest gentlemen, whose place in their hearts can never be filled.  The surviving relatives besides his bereaved widow, are Walter S., L. A. and Gilmer T. Thomas of Troy .

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