He participated in both the first and second Battles of Bull Run, and the battles of Cedar Mountain, Fredericksburg, Antietam, Morton's Ford, New Market, and in Stonewall Jackson's Valley campaigns. He was wounded multiple times. He joined the Maryland National Guard after the war and was promoted to the rank of major in 1868. That year he married Josephine Forester, and they had nine sons and three daughters; one of the daughters died as a young child. Among other jobs he worked for twenty-one years in the office of the clerk of Baltimore County, before setting up a quarrying and contracting company, T. B. Gatch &amp; Sons, with seven of his sons.