Homer S. Thompson was born on May 17, 1842, in Halfmoon, Pennsylvania, to John and Lydia Thompson. His father was a farmer who owned $10,000 of real estate and $1,600 of personal property by 1860. He grew up and attended school in Halfmoon.

 

He enlisted in the Union army on September 2, 1861, and he mustered in as a private in Company E of the 45^th Pennsylvania Infantry. The regiment took part in the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Fredericksburg, the siege of Vicksburg, the Knoxville campaign, the Overland Campaign, and the siege of Petersburg. He was wounded in the head and back at Petersburg. He was promoted to sergeant major on February 8, 1865, and he mustered out on July 17, 1865.

 

He returned to Halfmoon after the war and reportedly “engaged in the mercantile business.” In April 1869, he received an appointment as a postmaster. He married Francina Walton, and they had at least two children: Anna, born around 1870; and Hannah, born on April 29, 1872. By 1870, he owned $4,000 of personal property. He moved to Scott, Kansas, in the 1870s and earned a living as a farmer. The couple may have gotten divorced, and he married a woman named Harriet around 1884. The couple had no children. By 1900, he was living in Tuscarora, Pennsylvania. He died in East Waterford, Pennsylvania, on March 2, 1909, from “complications of diseases occasioned by exposure and hardships suffered during the war.”

 

Image: Homer S. Thompson (History of the Forty-Fifth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry)

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