Brevet Lt. Colonel James Thompson (USA)

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Thompson&GSmi...

Union Civil War Officer. Born in Delaware County, New York, he graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1851. He was assigned to the 2nd U.S. Artillery as a 2nd Lieutenant. He was serving at the Rio Grande River in Texas on border patrol when the Civil War began. He was re-assigned to the Army of the Potomac and promoted to Captain of Battery G on June 14, 1861. Thompson also assumed command of two volunteer regiment batteries, the 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery Battery E and the 1st New Jersey Light Artillery Battery B. He was brevetted to Major and Lieutenant Colonel for gallantry and meritorious conduct in battle at the Battles of Glendale and Chickamauga.

After the war was over, he became a professor of military science at Indiana University. He was married to Maria Taliaferro. He died at his residence in Newport, Kentucky in 1880 when he was 52 years old. His son, Brigadier General John T. Thompson, was famous for inventing the Thompson Machine Gun, known as the "Tommy Gun." His son was also a West Point graduate of 1882 and a veteran of the Spanish American War and World War I, where in 1918, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal as Director of Arsenals.