Raising troops in Connecticut, August, 1861. Lieutenant Governor Benjamin Douglas, autograph letter signed, to Adjutant General J. D. Williams, reporting on volunteers to be a part of the Middletown Company.

“We send by the Bearer Lieut. John Thompson ten or a Doz. volunteers – They have not been sworne in – it can be more conveniently done in Hartford.  These are to make part of the Middletown Comp’y.  / Yours Truly / Benj’n Douglas / P.S. I have paid their passage on Boat & you can send some by Thompson.”

Douglas, an inventor and manufacturer of pumps, served in the state general assembly; was a mayor of Middletown; a delegate to the Republican national conventions of 1856 and 1860 (casting a vote in support of Abraham Lincoln); and a lieutenant governor of Connecticut (1861-1862).  He was a founding member of the Middletown Anti-Slavery Society, and his home in Middletown is believed to have been a stop on the Underground Railroad.  While mayor of Middleton, he refused to comply with the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law.  After the War, he served as head of the building committee for the Middletown Soldier’s Monument, erected in 1874.

Lieut. John Thompson served in the Seventh Regiment of Infantry, Company I, enlisting Sept. 2, 1861, mustered Sept. 13, 1861, promoted to Captain, Co. B., Feb. 1864. (Record of Service of Connecticut Men in the Army and Navy of the United States, p. 320)

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