After the Second war of Schleswig between Denmark and Prussia ended in 1864, Swedish volunteers coming back from Denmark wanted to go to America and continue fighting there in the American Civil War. Thomas solved this problem without asking his government for directions. He arranged with the captains of the Hamburg steamers to take these soldiers across the ocean at half price, and together with some friends he "made up a little purse" with which they could be sent to Hamburg. "I am well aware," he reported to the U.S. Department of State, "that as consul I can have nothing to do with enlisting soldiers, but no international law can prevent me from paying a soldier's passage from here to Hamburg out of my own pocket." In the course of the following winter, Thomas induced more Swedish soldiers to go to America.