Mather, Thomas S.

Born: 1829-04-24 Simsbury, Connecticut

Died: 1890-11-20 Springfield, Illinois

Thomas S. Mather, a lawyer and real estate agent in Springfield, Illinois, attended Yale to study philosophy and the arts. He served as the first adjutant general of Illinois from 1858 to 1861, and in that position he signed the first commission of Ulysses S. Grant as an officer in the volunteer army. After the outbreak of the Civil War, Mather retired as adjutant general when he received a Union commission to be a colonel in the Second Illinois Light Artillery. He eventually rose to become John A. McClernand's chief of staff. Mather never married.

Directory of Living Non-Graduates of Yale University (New Haven, CT: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, 1910), 84; The Chicago Daily Tribune (IL), 21 November 1890, 6:7; Roger D. Hunt and Jack R. Brown. Brevet Brigadier Generals in Blue (Gaithersburg, MD: Olde Soldier Books, 1997), 383; C. S. Williams, Williams' Springfield Directory, City Guide, and Business Mirror, For 1860-61 (Springfield, IL: Johnson & Bradford, 1860), 110; E. B. Buck and E. P. Kriegh, Buck & Kriegh's City Directory, For the Year 1859, Springfield, Illinois (Springfield, IL: B. A. Richards, 1859), 58; Gravestone, Simsbury Cemetery, Simsbury, CT.