Unhonored Service: The Life of Lee’s Senior Cavalry Commander, Colonel Thomas Taylor Munford, CSA

By Sheridan R. Barringer

Thomas Taylor Munford was the most senior, and likely the most important, cavalry colonel in Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. As a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, Munford was well placed, but not a member of the West Point military elite. This likely contributed to his being overlooked repeatedly for promotion to brigadier general, despite having commanded Fitzhugh Lee’s brigade in some of the war’s most important battles and commanding a division at the end of the war. Bitterness over these snubs and other issues led to Munford’s famous feud with Major General Thomas L. Rosser, the subject of author Sheridan Barringer’s previous work.  Col. Munford wrote prolifically about his experiences in the war and provided much insight into important officers within the cavalry corps of the Army of Northern Virginia.  This is a biography worthy of shelf space in the library of every serious student of the American Civil War.