Thomas J. Wright was the son of an army surgeon, Joseph J. B. Wright (fl. 1833). He was a cadet at the United States Military Academy from 1850-1854. He thus overlapped with Whistler at West Point, but unlike Whistler, he graduated from West Point in 1854.
On graduating he served in the army at Jefferson Barracks, and was on frontier duty, 1855-1857, until his death on 30 April 1857.
George W. Cullum's Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, since its establishment in 1802