William Thompson

William Thompson (November 10, 1813 – October 6, 1897), a lawyer, clerk, newspaperman, longtime Army officer, and, was the first person elected to Congress from Iowa's 1st congressional district. His race for re-election in 1848 was the only Iowa U.S. House election to be revoted. After Thompson's opponent, Whig candidate Daniel F. Miller, challenged Thompson's apparent victory, Congress ordered his seat vacated and a special election conducted, which Thompson lost. He was a cavalry officer in the Union Army during the Civil War, and in the regular army for ten years thereafter.

Thompson was born in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, where he attended the common schools. He assisted his father to clear a farm in the dense forests of Ohio, and when twenty-one began to study law in the office of Columbus Delano. In 1839 he went by steamboat down the Ohio River and up the Mississippi River to Montrose in what was then Iowa Territory, Thompson, running as a Democrat, defeated Whig Party candidate J.B. Browne by 544 votes. The special election was a rematch of the 1848 election, but the second time, Miller defeated Thompson. In all, Thompson served in Congress from December 1847 to June 29, 1850.

For several years he was editor of the Iowa State Gazette. He was elected chief clerk of the Iowa House of Representatives in 1861, by a unanimous vote. On July 31, 1861, after the outbreak of the Civil War, Thompson was commissioned as a captain in Company E of the 1st Regiment Iowa Volunteer Cavalry. On May 18, 1863, he was promoted to major, and on June 20, 1864, to colonel. On March 13, 1865, as the end of the war approached, he became a brevetted brigadier general of the Volunteers.

When the Civil War ended, Thompson's military service did not. On July 28, 1866, at the request of General George Custer, he was recommissioned as a captain in the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the regular army, and fought in the Indian Wars. He remained with the Army until his retirement on December 15, 1875, just a few months before Custer and most of the 7th Cavalry was massacred at the Battle of Little Big Horn.

Thompson died in Tacoma, Washington and was buried there.