General Thomas Ewing during the Civil War.
Thomas Ewing, Jr. was a Military Officer, Free-State advocate, and the first Chief Justice of the State of Kansas.
Ewing was born in Lancaster, Ohio, on August 7, 1829. Ewing was educated in public schools and, at 19, was appointed Secretary of the Commission to settle the boundary between Ohio and Virginia. He also served as the private secretary to President Zachary Taylor during his administration. After the president’s death, he entered Brown University and graduated in 1854. A year later, he received his degree from the Cincinnati Law School and was admitted to the bar. In 1856, he married Ellen E. Cox of Piqua, Ohio, and they had five children. That same year, in November, he moved to Leavenworth, Kansas, where he joined the Sherman, Ewing & McCook law firm. He soon rose to the top of his profession and played a prominent role in the great political struggle of the territorial era as a Free-State man.
When abolitionists met in a convention in December 1857 to decide whether opponents of slavery in the territory should take part in the election of January 4, 1858, Ewing urged them to vote.
This motion, along with 12 others, was defeated, and Ewing retired. They then organized and nominated men for all the offices. Each candidate pledged to vote for a new Constitution that should forever prohibit slavery in Kansas. Ten days before the election, Ewing and his twelve associates began canvassing the territory.
The Surveyor-General, John Calhoun, whose duty it was to await the election returns, tried to defeat the Free-State party by declaring the pro-slavery men had won and went so far as to start for Washington to submit the Lecompton Constitution to Congress to have Kansas admitted as a slave state. Ewing got the Free-State Territorial Legislature to appoint a committee, of which he was the head, to investigate the election returns. At the election for state officers on December 6, 1859, the first held under the Wyandotte Constitution, Ewing was elected Chief Justice for a term of six years and took his seat on the bench in February 1861 when the state government was established.
In the summer of 1862, he helped recruit the Eleventh Kansas Infantry. He was appointed colonel on September 14 and resigned as Chief Justice to take command of the regiment soon after. He took part in the actions of Cane Hill, Van Buren, and Prairie Grove. On March 13, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln commissioned him a Brigadier-General of Volunteers for “gallant and meritorious services.” Until June 1863, he commanded the First Division of the Army of the Frontier under Major-General Herron. The division was then discontinued, and General Ewing was assigned to command the District of the Border, comprising all of Kansas north of the 38th parallel and the western tier of counties in Missouri North of that line. His command remained actively engaged in repelling guerrilla raids. Ewing found that such men as William Quantrill and Richard Yeager had an impregnable base of operations in the three border counties of Missouri, with spies scattered throughout the country. After Quantrill raided Lawrence, Kansas, in August 1863, he issued “General Order No. 11,” a severe but necessary measure that effectively cleared the border of a population supporting the guerrillas. The general government sustained the order. Still, in the Democratic National Convention, which met in New York City on July 6, 1868, he was defeated for nomination for Vice President because of this order.
Evacuation of Missouri Counties under General Order No. 11, painting
 by George Caleb Bingham, 1870.
Assaults by his political enemies in Kansas and Missouri led General Ewing to request a Court of Inquiry. However, the president refused to order it and, at the same time, enlarged the district under the general’s command. In February 1864, when the District of the Border was divided by the creation of Kansas as a department, General Ewing relieved General Fish of command of southeastern Missouri, with headquarters at St. Louis. In the fall of 1864, he was actively engaged against General Price, who invaded Missouri on February 23. In 1865, General Ewing resigned his command and, on March 13, was breveted major general.
At the close of the Civil War, he resumed his law practice in Washington but returned to his native state of Ohio in 1870. In 1873, he served on the Ohio Constitutional Convention and in Congress from 1877 to 1881. He opposed the use of federal troops in state elections, favored the re-monetization of silver, and led the movement to preserve greenback currency. In 1879, he was the Democratic candidate for governor of Ohio. Three years later, he moved to New York City and entered into a partnership with Southard & Fairchild. The firm later became Ewing, Whitman & Ewing. He founded the Ohio Society in New York and served as its president for three years. General Ewing died on January 21, 1896, after being hit by a streetcar.
Compiled and edited by Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated October 2026.
About the Article: Most of this historic text was published in Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Volume I; edited by Frank W. Blackmar, A.M., Ph.D.Standard Publishing Company, Chicago, IL, 1912. However, the text on this page is not verbatim, as it has been updated with additions, updates, and edits.
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