Thomas Jordan (30 September 1819 – 27 November 1895) was a Confederate States Army Brigadier-General and spymaster during the American Civil War.
Biography[]
Thomas Jordan was born in Luray, Virginia in 1819, and he graduated from West Point in 1840. He served in the US Army during the Second Seminole War, on the Western frontier until 1846, and in the Mexican-American War, after which he was posted to several garrisons in the American South and on the Pacific coast. In 1860, with the threat of secession looming over the South, Jordan started a pro-Southern spy ring in Washington DC, including Rose O'Neal Greenhow. He became a captain in the fledgling Confederate States Army when the American Civil War broke out, and he fought as a colonel at the First Battle of Bull Run, and, after the Battle of Shiloh, he was promoted to Brigadier-General. In May 1864, he was given command of the Third Military District of South Carolina. After the war, he became a newspaper editor in Tennessee, and he became Chief of Staff of the Cuban insurgent army during the Ten Years' War. In May 1869, he landed at Mayari with 300 men and delivered arms and supplies to the 6,000 rebels on the island. In January 1870, he defeated the Spanish at Guaimaro, but he resigned a month later due to supply shortages and returned to the United States, settling in New York. He died in 1895.