Early Life
Born on December 31, 1860 in Newport, Kentucky, Thompson grew up on a succession of Army posts and had decided on the military as a career by the age of sixteen. After a year at Indiana University in 1877, he gained an appointment to the United States Military Academy, graduating in 1882.
His first duty station was in his birthplace of Newport, assigned to the 2nd Artillery as a second lieutenant. He then attended engineering and artillery schools, and was finally assigned to the Army's Ordnance Department in 1890, where he was to spend the rest of his military career. During this period he began his specialization in small arms.
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“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)