Exposed His Life

Thomas Saltus Lubbock a Texas Ranger and Confederate Colonel, died January 9^th 1862.

Thomas Saltus Lubbock was born November 29^th 1817 in Charleston, South Carolina the son of Henry T and Susan Ann (Saltus) Lubbock.  He moved to New Orleans, Louisiana in 1835 to work in a cotton factory.  When the Texas revolution started Lubbock marched with a company raised by Captain William G Cooke to Nacogdoches, Texas, and took part in the siege of San Antonio de Bexar.  He took work on the upper Brazos River on a steamboat before joining the Santa Fe Expedition.  When captured with his company in New Mexico, he escaped and made his way back to Texas.  He was elected First Lieutenant in the Texas Rangers and was at the head of a company that drove the Mexicans back across the Rio Grande.

Lubbock was a firm secessionist.  At the beginning of the Civil War Lubbock traveled with Thomas J Goree, James Longstreet, Benjamin Franklin Terry and John A Wharton from Galveston, Texas to Richmond, Virginia, where he petitioned Confederate President Jefferson Davis for permission to raise a company.  While in Virginia Lubbock and Terry along with about 15 other Texans organized into a band of scouts to work for the Confederate Army.  He was still a civilian during the First Battle of Manassas where he "exposed his life in bearing messages during the contest."

Lubbock and Terry finally received authority to raise a regiment of cavalry, and they returned to Texas where they raised the 8^th Texas Cavalry known as “Terry’s Texas Rangers”.  Lubbock was made the Lieutenant Colonel of the 8^th.  Finding himself in failing health Lubbock traveled to Nashville, Tennessee to recover.  When Terry was killed at the Battle of Rowlett’s Station on December 17^th 1861, Lubbock was promoted to Colonel of the 8^th.  He never took command of the regiment however, as he died from typhoid fever in Nashville, Tennessee January 9^th 1862.  He is buried in the Glenwood Cemetery in Houston, Texas.