Thomas A . Morris Thomas Armstrong Morris ( December 26 , 1811 – April 1 , 1904 ) was an American railroad executive and civil engineer from Indiana and a soldier , serving as a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War . He played an important role in clearing the Confederate army from western Virginia during the early part of the war , a move that helped foster pro - Union sentiment and contributed to the creation of the separate state of West Virginia . Morris was also instrumental in the planning and construction of the postbellum Indiana Statehouse . Biography . Thomas Morris was born in Nicholas County , Kentucky . He was one of three sons of Rachel and Morris Morris , an Indianapolis pioneer who moved to central Indiana from Kentucky and later became the Indiana State Auditor . Young Morris was educated in the local schools and was apprenticed at the age of twelve in the print room of Indianapolis ' s first newspaper . Three years later , he resumed his studies . In June 1830 , he accepted an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point , New York . He graduated fourth in the Class of 1834 and became an officer in the 1st U . S . Artillery stationed at Fort Monroe in Virginia and then at Fort King in Florida . He served in several engineering capacities , including in Indiana where he helped extend the National Road into Illinois . He resigned from the army to accept the role as the state ' s Resident Engineer and supervised the construction of both the Central Canal and the Madison and Indianapolis Railroad . He later served as the president of the Bee Line and then the Indianapolis and Cincinnati Railroad . Morris also became a colonel in the Indiana state militia . At the start of the Civil War , the Governor of Indiana , Oliver Morton , appointed Morris as the quartermaster general of the state ' s troops . On April 27 , 1861 he was appointed brigadier general in the Indiana State Militia . Soon , Morris took command of a brigade of newly raised Indiana state troops and led them into western Virginia . His troops became known as the " Indiana Brigade " and were attached to the Department of the Ohio under fellow railroader George B . McClellan . Morris was the overall Union commander at the battle of Philippi which is considered one of the first ( if not the first ) organized land engagements of the Civil War . He fought in several other engagements in West Virginia including the battles at Rich Mountain and Corrick ' s Ford . Around noon on July 13 , 1861 , Morris attacked the rear guard of the retreating Confederate forces at Corrick ' s Ford on the Cheat River . Morris ' s men pursued the Rebels for several miles in a running skirmish before finally routing them after killing Confederate General Robert S . Garnett . The victory helped secure western Virginia for the Union . In October 1862 , Morris declined an appointment to the rank of both brigadier general and major general of U . S . Volunteers and resigned from the army to return to the railroad industry . In 1877 , he was a commissioner overseeing the construction of the Indiana Statehouse , which was built in 1880 . He also oversaw the construction of the Union Railway and Union Depot in Indianapolis , and was later the president of the Indianapolis Water Company . Morris died in Indianapolis , Indiana at the age of 92 and was buried there .