Serving the Guns in Thompson's Battery

Gettysburg Magazine, no. 59 Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles’s Th ird Corps of the Army of the Potomac was strungout in a thin line. Th e farm road they were following continued uphill to the west, and soon the intersection with the northsouth road between Emmitsburg and Gettysburg came into view. Th e roads met atop a rise, higher than any other ground nearby, marked by two farmsteads on the north side and a rectangular peach orchard on the south. Sickles had already posted three batteries of his corps artillery along the road to Emmitsburg facing west, and those guns were already in action. What they were fi ring at worried Th ompson greatly.1 James Th ompson knew what to worry about. He was born on May 8, 1821, near Ballynahinch in County Down, Northern Ireland, not far from the city of Belfast. At age 23, he enlisted in the Royal Regiment of Artillery, known as “Th e Gunners” (the regimental motto was Ubique Quo Fas Et Gloria Ducunt— Everywhere Th at Right And Glory Lead) and received specialized training in artillery tactics at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich. Raised as a Protestant, Th ompson became a member of the Loyal Orange Institution, a Protestant fraternal organization also known as the Orange Order, in February, 1850. His battery fought in the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War on October 25, 1854, where the artillery played a signifi cant role in the defense of the British base there from Russian attacks, and his unit (First Troop of the Royal Horse Artillery) also supported the charge of the Heavy Brigade against the Russian cavalry. Th ompson received a promotion for gallantry at Balaclava, and