Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 5.djvu/468

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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

and action. In tlie highest circles of the business world, as well as in private and public life, his name was reverenced as being borne by one who could be trusted to the utmost in every direction.

Colonel Thomas Taylor Knox. Forty- eight of the sixty-six years of Colonel Thomas Taylor Knox have been passed in the • military service of the United States. That the proud record he has erected in that department to the credit of the name of Knox is not to stand alone in government annals is already an accomplished fact, for in both branches of the service, army and navy, two of his sons have begun careers not only of brilliant promise but of present accomplishment. Lieutenant Commander Dudley \\'right Knox, United States Navy, and Captain Thomas McAllister Knox, United States Army. Colonel Knox's active career includes service in the cavalry in the western and Pacific army posts, connection with the War Department at Washington, duty in the field in Cuba in the Spanish- American war, where he was wounded, and, since his retirement in 1903. with the rank of colonel, he has been identified in import- ant positions with the Soldiers' Homes of the United States. He is at this time Gov- ernor of the Soldiers' Home at Phoebus, Virginia, a position he has occupied since January i, 1906.

Colonel Knox is a son of William Wal- lace Knox, his Grandfather Knox also hav- ing a military record, his service being that of the King of England. William Wallace Knox, born in 1815, came from his home in Gl-asgow, Scotland, in 1835, and located in Cincinnati, Ohio. In his native land he had obtained a good public school education and had been connected with the iron manu- facturing industry, and in his new home he resided for a time in Cincinnati, Ohio, then moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky, later settling in Tennessee, making his home in Nashville until his death. He was a Whig in political sympathy and affiliated with the Protestant Episcopal Church. W' illiam Wal- lace Knox was a gentleman of character and principle, held in universal regard, and reared his family in paths of uprightness and honor. He died in 1879. His wife, whom he married in 1842, was Maria Seck- erson, born in 1821, died in 1897, and they

were the parents of: George R., connected with the Chattanooga and St. Louis Rail- road, married Geneva Johnson and resides in Nashville, Tennessee, the father of six children ; William Wallace, Jr., connected with the Chattanooga and St. Louis Rail- road, married Eliza Dunnavant and has six children ; Thomas Taylor, of whom further ; John S., a banker of Los Angeles. Califor- nia : Harry C. in the railroad service in Nashville, Tennessee.

Colonel Thomas Taylor Knox, son of Wil- liam Wallace and Maria (Seckerson) Knox, was born in eastern Tennessee in 1849. and when a child accompanied his parents to Nashville, where he became a student in the public and private schools. He took a law course of two years at the National Uni- versity, Washington, D. C, and a post graduate course of one year at the Colum- bian University (now George Washington University-) and he has a license to prac- tice law before the supreme court of the District of Columbia. Obtaining an appoint- ment to the United States Military Acad- emy at West Point in 1867, he met all of the physical and scholastic requirements for admission to that institution and was duly enrolled as a cadet, graduating four years later. After graduation he becarrie attached to the First Regiment. Cavalry, United States Army, and was assigned to duty on the Pacific Coast, remaining there for eleven years and in that time being promoted to the rank of first lieutenant, having entered the service as second lieutenant. At the end of this period he became assistant chief of the war records office of the War De- partment at Washington, remaining until 1893; in 1889 he was raised to the rank of captain in his old regiment, the First. Serv- ice in Arizona and Kansas preceded the call of the First for service in Cuba, whither the regiment was sent by way of Tampa, Flor- ida, at the beginning of hostilities between Spain and the United States. In the first engagement in which his regiment partici- pated, that at Lasguasimas, he was severely wounded in the body, was placed on a hos- pital ship and sent to the New York Harbor Hospital. His is the only recorded case of a complete recovery from such an injury, and the details of his case and its treatment have appeared in the leading medical journals of the world.