Thomas W. Storey was born around 1842 in Georgia to William and Elizabeth Storey. His father was a farmer who owned $500 of real estate and $450 of personal property by 1860. The family lived in Jackson County, Georgia, until the 1850s, when they moved to White County, Georgia. By 1860, Storey was working as a farmer.

 

He enlisted in the Confederate army on August 24, 1861, and he mustered in as a sergeant in Company C of the 24^th Georgia Infantry. The regiment took part in the Seven Days’ Battles, the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Battle of Chancellorsville, the Battle of Gettysburg, the Battle of Knoxville, the Overland Campaign, and the Appomattox campaign. He was wounded at Antietam on September 17, 1862. In August 1864, Confederate officials detailed him to guard baggage near Lynchburg, Virginia. He expressed devotion to the Confederate cause. In August 1863, he declared that “the fall of Vicksburg and port Hudson…shold not disharten us it shold make us fight the harder for our homes and liberties for it will not do to giv it up and submit to Lincolns over baring negro laws.” He would “rather fight til I die than to come up on an equality with a negro.”   

 

He settled in Blue Mountain, Arkansas, after the war, and he married Dollie L. Bailey on December 8, 1875. They had at least eight children: William, born around 1876; John, born around 1877; Joseph, born around 1880; Lou, born around 1882; William, born around 1884; Robert, born around 1887; Fred, born around 1889; and Jefferson, born around 1892. He earned a living as a farmer, and he served as sheriff and county judge. He died in Mountain View, Arkansas, in November 1917.

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