• Home
• About Us
• Encyclopedia
• Educator’s Corner
• Community Calendar
• Commentary
• Site Help
• Contact Us

Font Size: AAA

Thomas Fentriss Toon (1840-1902)

Born on June 10, 1840 in Columbus County, Thomas Fentress Toon was a farmer prior to attending Wake Forest College.  He was a rising senior, when he joined the Columbus Guards No. 2 on May 20, 1861. He returned to Wake Forest to graduate in June 1861 and then rejoined his company.

The company had been raised in Columbus County, enlisted on April 24, 1861, mustered in at Fort Caswell in Brunswick County on June 18, and then assigned to Company K of the 20th North Carolina. The regiment was first commanded by Colonel Alfred Iverson and Lt. Colonel Franklin Faison.  Toon mustered in as a private and was elected Lieutenant on June 18 and later to Captain on July 22.   A fellow captain in the regiment was his kinsman William H. Toon of Bladen County, who eventually rose to Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment.

Toon’s original 10th North Carolina Volunteers was organized at Fort Johnston in Smithville (now Southport) at the mouth of the Cape Fear River on June 18th 1861.  It purpose was to defend the State.  It eventually became the 20th North Carolina on November 14, 1861.  The regiment went through artillery and infantry training at Forts Johnston and Caswell, Oak Island, and Smith’s Island (now Bald Head Island). On June 14, 1862, Toon and his regiment proceeded under orders to Richmond, Virginia and was assigned to General Samuel Garland’s brigade of General Daniel H. Hill’s division. On June 25 the brigade moved toward Williamsburg to support General Benjamin Huger’s action at King’s School House.

Shot by the enemy twice in 1862, Toon was wounded seven times during the entire war, and he fought gallantly at Seven Pines, the Seven Days Campaign, South Mountain, and Fredericksburg.  Major Toon was elected colonel of the regiment on February 26, 1863 when his seniors in rank waived their own rights to promotion.  He led the 20th North Carolina Regiment during Stonewall Jackson's famous flank attack at Chancellorsville and was shot three times while leading his regiment through what he later described as "a perfect storm of shells and a mist of minie balls." His regiment was heavily involved at Gettysburg from July 1-3, 1863, and his 20th North Carolina suffered horribly during the first day’s action with 65% casualties; and later the Mine Run Campaign and the bloody battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania.

When  General Robert D. Johnston (of Lincoln County) was wounded at Spotsylvania, Colonel Toon was promoted to the rank of brigadier general on May 31, 1864. He commanded the brigade during Gen. Jubal Early's Shenandoah Valley campaign and threatening movements toward Washington City.  For his bravery and leadership, General Robert E. Lee commended Toon.  When General Johnston returned to duty during the last stage of the Valley campaign, Toon reverted to the rank of colonel.
Colonel Toon would receive his last and most serious wound on March 25, 1865 during the assault on Fort Stedman, near Petersburg.

He was sent to a hospital in Greensboro, North Carolina on April 7 1865 and recovered sufficiently to be present when General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered his army at the end of the month. Colonel Toon was paroled by Northern forces at Greensboro in May, nearly a month after his 20th North Carolina had stacked their arms at Appomattox.  Colonel Toon returned to Columbus County after the war and lived there for 25 years before moving to nearby Robeson County in 1891.  

Although he had a distinguished military career, Toon is far better known for his accomplished civilian career in education.  He served as principal at Columbus County’s Fair Bluff School on Academy Street in the mid-1880’s, and he became a vocal advocate of public education in North Carolina and was a protégé’ of Governor Charles Brantley Aycock, a committed leader of public schooling for the white and black races. Toon was elected to the position of North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1901.  

That year, Toon also wrote a detailed regimental history of the 20th North Carolina for  Clark’s Regiments, an official compilation of North Carolina’s struggle 1861-1865. His tribute to the regiment noted that it was “initiated at Seven Pines, sacrificed at Gettysburg, surrendered at Appomattox.”  General Toon died in Raleigh on February 19, 1902, and is buried in that city in Oakwood Cemetery.