Stephen Millett Thompson
Stephen Millett Thompson was born on April 27, 1838, in Barnstead, New Hampshire, to Stephen Jones Thompson and Nancy Griffin. His father was a farmer who owned $1,200 of real estate in 1850. His mother died in July 1840, and his father followed on June 9, 1851. Thompson grew up in an uncle’s household in Lee, New Hampshire, and he later wrote that he “served as a conductor on the Underground Railroad…guiding numerous escaped slaves through New Hampshire woods toward Canada” during his teenage years.
He attended school in Lee before enrolling at Phillips Exeter Academy in 1857. Robert Todd Lincoln enrolled two years later, and Thompson was reportedly the first person to tell Lincoln that his father had secured the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 1860.
He enlisted in the Union army on August 13, 1862, and mustered in as a sergeant in Company E of the 13th New Hampshire Infantry on September 19. When he first saw his fellow soldiers, he declared them a “motley company, many in their worst suites of clothes, the most looking as if they had not slept for a week.” Nonetheless, he observed, they were determined to “take a strong hand in putting an end to the war, and their patriotism and devotion to the cause of the Union outweigh all other considerations.”
The 13th New Hampshire fought in the Battle of Fredericksburg, and Thompson proudly insisted that they came closer to the Confederate lines than any other Union regiment. He was promoted to 2nd lieutenant on June 10, 1863, and he took part in the Bermuda Hundred Campaign in May 1864.
Thompson remained deeply invested in the political issues at stake in the war. In December 1863, he declared that he was “bitterly opposed to everything that tends to weaken the power of the United States, as I am to the extension of negro slavery, or its perpetuation, or the inordinate use of intoxicating liquors—all deviltry is of the same level.” He wrote that he “prefer[red] war to any compromise with…traitors and outlaws.” He was severely wounded at Petersburg on June 15, 1864, and he mustered out on October 4, 1864.
Thompson married Julia Frances White in Rhode Island on June 2, 1870, and they had at least three children: Millett, born around 1875; Anna, born around 1877; and Burnham, born around 1879. By 1880, they were living in Providence, Rhode Island, and Thompson was working as the treasurer of a land company. He published a memoir of his Civil War service in 1888, hoping to convey “some idea of what it cost, in labor, fighting and suffering, to re-unite the dissevered States of the American Union.”
His memoir captured the fear and suffering that the men endured. But he also insisted that the “Thirteenth [Rhode Island], as well as the army as a whole, laughed far more than it wept, and will remember its enjoyments far beyond the fading of its woes.” Despite his wartime commitment to preserving the Union and ending slavery, he embraced a reconciliationist memory of the war. He praised the “bravery, courage and honor” of Confederate soldiers and called them the “very best men the South possessed.”
Thompson remained in Providence for the rest of his life. His wife died there on October 20, 1907, and he passed away on May 26, 1911.
DATABASE CONTENT
| (948) | Thompson, Stephen Millett | 1838-04-27 | 1911-05-26 |
- Conflict Side: Union
- Role: Soldier
- Rank in: Sergeant
- Rank out: 2nd Lieutenant
- Rank highest: 2nd Lieutenant
- Gender: Male
- Race: White
Documents - Records: 8
- (2957) [writer] ~ Stephen M. Thompson to Abby J. A. Bunker, 19 October 1862
- (3148) [writer] ~ Stephen M. Thompson to Emma A. Griffin, 8 May 1863
- (3149) [writer] ~ Stephen M. Thompson to Emma A. Griffin, 25 March 1864
- (3993) [writer] ~ Stephen M. Thompson to Unknown, 2 June 1863
- (5288) [writer] ~ Stephen M. Thompson to Emma A. Griffin, 22 May 1863
- (5289) [writer] ~ Stephen M. Thompson to Emma A. Griffin, 18 September 1863
- (5290) [writer] ~ Stephen M. Thompson to Emma A. Griffin, 30 September 1863
- (15410) [writer] ~ Stephen M. Thompson to Unknown, 6 December 1863
People - Records: 2
Places - Records: 2
Regiments - Records: 1
- (309) [officer] [E] ~ 13th New Hampshire Infantry
SOURCES
1850, 1860, 1880, and 1900 United States Federal Censuses, available from Ancestry.com; New Hampshire Births and Christenings Index, 1714-1904, available from Ancestry.com; Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861-1865, available from Ancestry.com; Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the Phillips Exeter Academy, 1783-1883 (Boston, MA: J. S. Cushing & Co., 1883); Stephen M. Thompson to Unknown, 2 June 1863, DL1669, Nau Collection.
