My Genealogy Hound

G. W. Thomason is not only one of the most successful and enterprising planters of Mississippi County, but he is also a lawyer of thorough preparatory training, both literary and professional. His boyhood was passed in assisting on the farm and attending school. He was studying at college at the breaking out of the war, but he flung aside his books to enter the Confederate Army, enlisting when nineteen years of age in Company H, Fifth Tennessee Volunteers, and was assigned to the Western army. After participating in the destructive battle of Shiloh, he was transferred to the Fifty-second Tennessee Regiment, and promoted to the rank of third lieutenant. After this he participated in the battles of Perryville, Murfreesboro, and then in that most disastrous battle at Franklin, Tenn. Just previous to this battle he was promoted to captain, his command being fragments of five regiments, and was the only officer left of that company. He was captured during that engagement, and was sent to Johnson’s Island, where he remained for about seven months. After his release, the war being over, he returned to his brother’s law office at Paris, Tenn., and began the study of law. He remained in that city until 1868, when he was admitted to the bar in that place, but soon afterward left for Dyersburg, where he remained one year, engaged in the practice of his profession. On the 5th of April, 1869, he came to Osceola, Mississippi County, Ark., and here resumed his practice. As a lawyer Mr. Thomason possesses solid, substantial talent, and is a man who will succeed under any and all circumstances. His practice is steadily and substantially increasing, and covers a wide extent of territory. In 1871 he was united in marriage to Mrs. C. J. Josey, nee Borum, a native of Kentucky. She died on the 31st of May, 1887, leaving one child, a daughter, Lola Maud. He is active, politically, and votes with the Democratic party. He was the fifth of nine children born to Richard Lee and Elizabeth (Smith) Thomason, natives of North Carolina. The father’s people were pioneers in Tennessee, and there the father cultivated the soil and passed his last days.