Bartlett Thompson

Bartlett Thompson was born in 1846.

Bartlett stood 5’5” with blue eyes, brown hair and a light complexion and was an 18-year-old laborer possibly living in Manistee, Manistee County, Michigan, when he enlisted in Company I on February 6, 1864, at Grand Rapids for 3 years, crediting Manistee, and was mustered the same day. He joined the Regiment on February 17 at Camp Bullock, Virginia, and was slightly wounded in one of his shoulders in early May during the Wilderness-Spotsylvania movements.

He was reported absent sick in May, and was probably still absent sick when he was transferred to Company I, Fifth Michigan infantry upon consolidation of the Third and Fifth Michigan Regiments on June 10, 1864. On September 21 Thompson entered a general hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with a wound in the shoulder, and he remained absent sick in Philadelphia until he was discharged for disability on June 2, 1865, at Mower hospital in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia.

In late June of 1865 he applied for and received a pension (no. 85670).

It is not known if Bartlett ever returned to Michigan. He may have been the same “Barthel” Thompson, born about 1845 in Norway, who was married to Illinois native Anna (b. 1845), and they had at least six children: Esther (b. 1867), Thomas (b. 1869), Minnie (b. 1871), George (b. 1873), Nellie (b. 1875) and Bertie (b. 1878). In 1870 this same Barthel Thompson was working as a farmer and living with his wife and two children in Greencastle, Marshall County, Iowa, and by 1880 they were living on a farm in Le Grand, Marshall County, Iowa.

He was a member of the Old Third Michigan Infantry Association.

Barthel of the Old Third was living at 704 Massachusetts Avenue in Chicago sometime around 1900.