he became a successful businessman, a ropewalk (hemp rope factory) in the city being among his ventures. Hemp was a commodity crop of central Kentucky. In April 1809, Hart married Anna Edward Gist, the stepdaughter of General Charles Scott, governor of Kentucky, and daughter of Judith Cary Gist Scott and her late husband General Nathaniel Gist. Hart and Anna had two sons, Thomas Hart Jr. and Henry Clay Hart. On January 7, 1812, Hart duelled with Samuel E. Watson at a location on the Indiana side of the Ohio River, near where Silver Creek emptied into the river. This was the site where Henry Clay had duelled with fellow state legislator Humphrey Marshall in 1809. Military service and death At the start of the War of 1812, Hart was commissioned as Captain of the Lexington Light Infantry Company (aka "The Silk Stocking Boys") a volunteer unit of the Fayette County, Kentucky militia. He later served as either a Deputy Inspector or as Inspector General of William Henry Harrison's Army of the Northwest. Hart's command was attached to the Fifth Regiment of the Kentucky Volunteer Militia and left for the Northwest in August 1812, where it became part of Army of the Northwest under General James Winchester. In January 1813, a detachment was sent to the defense of Frenchtown, Michigan Territory as part of an effort to retake Detroit from the British. Frenchtown residents had sent word to the Americans asking for relief from an occupying force of the British and their Indian allies. During the First Battle of Frenchtown on January 18, 1813, the American forces under Lt. Colonel William Lewis were successful in forcing the retreat of the small British force stationed there. The British commander of the Fort Malden garrison in Amherstburg, Colonel Henry Procter, made plans to take back Frenchtown and he ordered troops to the area. On the morning of January 22, 1813, Procter's forces, including hundreds of Indian warriors, attacked the American troops and overwhelmed the right flank of regulars under Winchester, forcing him and much of the general staff to surrender. The Kentucky militia under the command of Major George Madison on the left flank fought on and thought the flag of truce presented by the enemy was a British flag of surrender. During this second Battle of Frenchtown, 397 Americans were killed. Hart was wounded and was among the 547 survivors who surrendered