Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1290

1210 soon afterward promoted junior first lieutenant, and finally first lieutenant. He participated with honor in the battles of First Manassas, Yorktown, Williamsburg and Seven Pines. Then being detailed for several weeks on recruiting service he missed the Seven Days' battles. Subsequently he fought at Fredericksburg, Plymouth, New Bern and Little Washington, N. C., Gettysburg, with Pickett's division, Second Cold Harbor and in the trenches before Petersburg, until sent upon a mounted detail to Lynchburg, where he was on duty at the time of the surrender. At the close of hostilities he farmed for a short time in Franklin county, and then made his home at Lynchburg, where he was for several years agent for the Lynchburg News. In 1868 he engaged in his present business, that of a furniture dealer. His father, William D. Thompson, also served in the Confederate cause, as a member of the reserve troops at Petersburg. In October, 1863, Lieutenant Thompson was married at Lynchburg to Mary, daughter of Albert and Susan (Tucker) Waddell, and they have six sons and one daughter.

Magnus S. Thompson, for a number of years past a resident of Washington, D. C., and an official of the navy department of the United States, served gallantly as a private in the army of Northern Virginia. He is a native of the Old Dominion, born July 31, 1846, near Winchester, in Frederick county, where his father, Hon. William Broadus Thompson, then resided. When he was yet a child the family removed to St. Louis, Mo., and subsequently to a permanent home at St. Joseph, Mo., in both of which cities the father engaged in the practice of law. At the outbreak of the war, the elder son, W. T. Thompson, joined the forces' organized by his uncle, Gen. M. Jeff Thompson, who was one of the leaders, with Price and Hardee, in the effort to unite Missouri with the Confederate States. The career of Gen. Jeff Thompson, and the gallant struggle of his command, and the Mississippi flotilla in which he was deeply interested, is one of the many romances of the war in the West. Magnus S. Thompson at that time was so young that the entreaties of his mother kept him at home for some time, until she consented to accompany him to Virginia. They reached Winchester in the latter part of July, and when Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson made his headquarters at that city he volunteered in his service as a courier. He served in this capacity until the battle of Kernstown, when the solicitude of his mother prevailed upon him to return with her to Missouri. Two months later he obtained permission to go back to Virginia and enter the army at the age of sixteen years. The Federal blockade at that time was so strict that he accomplished the journey only with great hardships and danger, and was compelled to travel disguised in women's clothes during the major part of the time. Entering the Confederate lines at Newtown he soon found himself among friends, and enrolled in a company of partisan rangers, commanded by Captain Trahour. This and other independent commands were soon united in the Thirty-fifth Virginia battalion of cavalry, under Col. E. V. White, and young Thompson was unanimously requested to accept the captaincy of his company, but he declined the promotion, preferring to serve in the ranks. Participating heartily in the adventures of this