From: Confederate Military History Extended Edition.  Edited by Gen. 
Clement A. Evans of Georgia.  Wilmington, NC. Broadfoot Publishing 
Company, 1987; pages 278-279.

ADDITIONAL SKETCHES ILLUSTRATING THE SERVICES OF OFFICERS AND 
PRIVATES AND PATRIOTIC CITIZENS OF WESTERN VIRGINIA.

*COLONEL WILLIAM P. THOMPSON*

Colonel William P. Thompson, Nineteenth Virginia cavalry, was
born at Wheeling, January 7, 1837. His father, Judge George W.
Thompson, was famous as a jurist, statesman, and philosophic
author; his mother, Elizabeth, was the daughter of Daniel 
Steenrod, a man of large fortune. Colonel Thompson was educated at 
Jefferson college, Pa., until compelled by delicate health to forsake 
his studies. He was admitted to the bar in 1857, and then removed 
from his father's circuit to Fairmount, where he practiced four years 
as a partner of Alpheus F. Haymond. Early in 1861 he at first opposed 
secession, but soon afterward both father and son cast their fortunes 
unreservedly with their native State. He bore to the authorities at 
Richmond the suggestion, made by a private conference of leading 
citizens of western Virginia, that a demonstration should be made to 
save their part of the State, which was followed by the occupation of 
Harper's Ferry. Returning to the West he organized and became captain 
of the Marion Guards, which he commanded with energy and ability in 
the struggle of 1861 on West Virginia soil. He took possession of 
Fetterman with his own and other companies, and later commanded his 
company in the battles of Philippi, Laurel Hill, Cheat Mountain, 
Greenbrier River and Alleghany Mountain. In the last engagement his 
brother, Lewis S. Thompson, was killed while leading a gallant attack 
upon the enemy. He served under Stonewall Jackson in the valley in 
1862, and upon the organization of the Nineteenth Virginia cavalry in 
1863, he became its lieutenant-colonel, and was later promoted 
colonel. He served in the department of Western Virginia and East 
Tennessee, and with Gen. W. L. Jackson's brigade, participated in the 
Lynchburg campaign, the expedition through Maryland against 
Washington, and Early's contest with Sheridan in the Shenandoah 
valley. At the close he was in command of the remnant of Jackson's 
brigade. In 1866 he engaged in the oil business with his brother-in-
law, Senator J. N. Camden, and the company became the owners of the 
lubricating oil lands near Parkersburg. He became associated with the 
Standard oil company in 1875, and in 1882 succeeded Oliver H. Payne 
as vice-president of that world-famous corporation, with general 
charge of the business west of Buffalo. In 1887, when the Standard 
oil trust was formed, he became chairman of the domestic committee, 
and in 1889 he organized the national lead trust.


(Linda Fluharty)