Pueblo County CO Archives Biographies.....Tarsney, Thomas J. 1842 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 December 28, 2008, 1:50 am

Author: R. M. Stevenson (1881)

THOMAS J. TARSNEY.

    Mr. Tarsney's history is interesting. He is the son of a blacksmith and was
born in the small village of Medina, Lenawee Co., Mich., September 16, 1842. To
do a larger business than he was doing in Medina, his father changed his
residence to Ransom, Hillsdale Co., in 1854, removing his son from the place of
his birth at an early age, and just as he was becoming of an age to appreciate a
birthplace's happy and sacred associations. He lived at Ransom. working on a
farm, excepting the first three winters, which were spent at school, till he was
nineteen. At the first call of the United States in 1861, for volunteers, he
enlisted for three months, in Company E, Fort Wayne Rifles, Indiana Volunteers,
and was discharged at the close of his term of enlistment at Fort Wayne. That
was a prelude to the life which was admirably adapted to his nature and which he
was destined to follow six years, in a war which was second to few, if any,
which have been waged on the globe. Two of his brothers were in Company E,
Fourth Michigan Volunteers, and to be with them he went to Washington where
their regiment was, and joined their company, enlisting for three years.
Fighting was "the order of the day" with the Fourth and he began a soldier's
life in earnest shortly after his enlistment. Gaines' Mill was the first battle
in which he was engaged. In the Peninsular campaign he took part in the battles
of Savage Station, White Oak Swamp and the big battle of Malvern Hill. He was at
Bull Run, but not in the fight. In McClellan's command he marched against Lee in
Maryland and was in the fight of Antietam, and at Mayre's Heights in the
Fredericksburg campaign. Under Hooker, he fought at Chancellorville. Winter
quarters were endured on the Rappahannock. In the spring of 1865, he joined the
veteran organization, and received a thirty-day furlough, which he used by going
to Michigan on a visit. When he returned from his visit, the command of the Army
of the Potomac had been given to Gen. Meade and with his amassed forces he
marched into Maryland and carried the colors of the company at Gettysburg and in
the chase of the confederates into Virginia. After the re-organization of the
army under Gen. Grant, he was wounded by a ball in the shoulder-blade at the
battle of the Wilderness, on the 6th of May, and did not again join his company
till fall, but in time to be in the fights of Yellow House Tavern and Gravely
Run. Only two companies of the old Fourth veteranized; they served with the
First Michigan, and at the close of the war were ordered to join their own
regiment, Col. Jairus W. Hall commanding, which had been fighting in Tennessee
and was on its way to Texas. He overtook his regiment at New Orleans, and with
it went to San Antonio. There he resigned the office of Orderly Sergeant, to
which he had been elected by his company in 1864, to accept of the appointment
of Orderly on the Colonel's Staff. The mustering-out of the United States
service, of this regiment and his return to Hudson, Mich., occurred in the
summer of 1865. He and Miss Lucy A. Smith were married May 8, 1866. From that
date he began railroading; first as fireman on the Wabash Railroad, being
promoted to engineer in three years, and given an engine on the Michigan Central
Railroad, which he ran two years. He then took an engine on the Flint & Pere
Marquette Railroad; then one on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, which he ran
till 1878. Taking an active part in the great railroad strike of that year, he
was imprisoned at Topeka until the trouble was over. Since his release, he has
run an engine on the Kansas Pacific Railroad, and one on the Denver & Rio Grande
Railroad. At the present time, he is proprietor of the Clifton House, South
Pueblo, Colo., and does a fair share of the general hotel business, besides
receiving an extra share of the patronage of railroad men.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

History of the  Arkansas Valley, Colorado
By J. Harrison Mills

O. L. Baskin & Co.
Chicago
1881


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