William Thompson (general)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William Thompson (c. 1725 or 1736? - 1781) was born in Ireland and emigrated to Pennsylvania. During the French and Indian War Thompson served as the captain of a troop of mounted militia. In 1775 he was made a colonel and was sent to Massachusetts to help in the defense of Boston following the Battle of Bunker Hill. After Thompson's company of Pennsylvania sharpshooters drove back a British landing-party, he was made a brigadier-general. Thompson was captured during an attack on the enemy at Trois Rivières in Quebec. Soon after his parole, he died at his home near Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1781.
He was the first officer to be commissioned as a Colonel in the United States Army.[1]
