Scores of southern officers, however, like Scott remained loyal to nation rather than section. Some of them played key roles in the eventual triumph of nation over section: Virginian George H. Thomas, who saved the Union Army of the Cumberland at Chickamauga and destroyed the Confederate Army of Tennessee at Nashville; Tennessean David G. Farragut, who captured New Orleans and damned the torpedoes at Mobile Bay; North Carolinian John Gibbon, who became one of the best division commanders in the Army of the Potomac while three of his brothers fought for the South.
