Thomas J. Simmons

Born in Crawford County, near Knoxville, Georgia, where he was raised on a farm, he began his formal education of his own accord at age 18.

[1] He read law and opened an office in Knoxville, which quickly became a large and lucrative practice.

At the outset of the American Civil War, he enlisted in the Confederate States Army in Crawford's Grays, the first company to leave the county in 1861.

He fought in the Battle of Big Bethel below Yorktown, and in every campaign of the Confederate Army of the Potomac.

[1] In September 1887, Simmons was elected associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia.