It’s really General R. W. Johnson

This photo is captioned as Gen. George Thomas and a group of officers at a council of war near Ringgold, Georgia, May 5, 1864 in several books. It purports to show General Thomas at a table during the Atlanta campaign. I never thought it was Thomas, as Thomas did not have a receding hairline and a close look at the uniform reveals the button pattern of a brigadier not a major general, but I had no idea of who the officer was. There were many generals in the picture that served under Thomas including Generals Jeff C. Davis, John Brannan, John H. King and William D. Whipple. Eventually I found the correct caption (referencing General R. W. Johnson at the table) in the book, Mapping the Civil War, featuring rare maps from the Library of Congress by Christopher Nelson with captions by Brian Pohanka, Fulcrum Publishing, Golden, CO ISBN 1-56373-001-4

Apparently this mistake was made by someone at the Library of Congress years ago and never questioned until the research by Mr. Pohanka.