Thomas L. Kane: Civil War General and Mormon Advocate

Thomas L. Kane was one of the more unusual figures in nineteenth-century American history: a Pennsylvania Civil War general who was also one of the most important non-Mormon allies the Latter-day Saints ever had.

Kane first encountered the Mormon community in the eighteen forties and became a fierce advocate for their right to settle and worship freely, intervening diplomatically at critical moments including the Utah War of eighteen fifty-seven, when he brokered a peaceful resolution that avoided a military confrontation between federal troops and Brigham Young's followers. During the Civil War, Kane commanded the famous Bucktail Regiment, Pennsylvanian sharpshooters renowned for their marksmanship, and was breveted Major General in eighteen sixty-five. He founded the borough of Kane, Pennsylvania, built a chapel here between eighteen seventy-six and eighteen seventy-eight, and was buried on these grounds when he died in eighteen eighty-three.