Lunsford Lindsay Lomax was born on November 4, 1835, in Newport, Rhode Island, to Mann Page Lomax and Elizabeth Virginia Lindsay. His father was an officer in the United States Army who died of tuberculosis in the early 1840s. Lomax grew up and attended school in Norfolk, Virginia, before enrolling at West Point. He graduated in 1856 and served in the 2^nd United States Cavalry.

 

He resigned from the army in April 1861 and accepted a commission as a captain in the Virginia state militia. He served as assistant adjutant general under General Joseph E. Johnston. He eventually earned a promotion to lieutenant colonel and then to colonel of the 11^th Virginia Cavalry. He took part in the Battle of Gettysburg, the Overland Campaign, and the Shenandoah Valley campaign. He was promoted to brigadier general in July 1863 and then to major general in August 1864. Union forces captured him near Woodstock, Virginia, on October 9, 1864, but he escaped soon afterward. He surrendered in April 1865 as part of General Johnston’s Army of Tennessee.

 

Lomax returned to Virginia after the war, and he married Elizabeth Payne on February 20, 1873. They had two daughters: Elizabeth, born around 1874; and Anne, born around 1887. By 1880, he was living in Washington, D.C., and working as a clerk for the House of Representatives. In 1886, he received an appointment as president of the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College. He held the position until 1891. He later served as a clerk in the War Department, and he helped edit the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies in the War of the Rebellion. He died in Washington, D.C, on May 28, 1913.

 

Image: Lunsford Lindsay Lomax (courtesy Wikicommons)

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