Many of the early units a person of community standing may have obtained authority from the state to form a unit with the intention of being its leader... some others were organized then elections held to determine its officers... So it could be possible that Thomas Owens may have had a hand in helping organize a company, but for whatever reason might not have been elected as its Captain.
Units identified to have had company(s) mustered from Randolph in 1861:
13th Alabama Infantry Regt (July 1861)
14th Alabama Infantry Regt (July 1861)
17th Alabama Infantry Regt (Aug 1861)
22nd Alabama Infantry Regt (Nov 1861)
25th Alabama Infantry Regt (Dec 1861)
Taking into consideration that when a company was organized may have taken 30-60 days or more sometimes to gather up sufficient numbers in order to qualify and be recognized/accepted... as well as could have been a time lapse between its mustering and assignment to a given regiment. Not unusual that a company might have started to organize in May but didnt complete and get assigned to a regiment till a month or couple months later... Might have been the "first" but might not have been assigned to a regiment first... So any of these "could" be a potential...
Also to note that the 25th Alabama Infantry mentioned above dated Dec 1861, had actually been in the field much earlier. It was created using two earlier units; the 1st Alabama Infantry Battalion consolidated with the 6th Alabama Infantry Battalion to form the 25th Alabama "regiment". Unfortunately the records/rolls of these earlier units are sparce or near nonexisting.. So also another possibility that this Owens guy might have had a hand in one of these earlier two units... but wasnt carried over when they were consolidated/reformed into a regiment... when the unusal records of this unit kicked in under that designation... Lots of possibilities...
Frederick