Series 20 - John Thompson (Fort Sumter) letters

16pp

PRONI created copies of the John Thompson letters from the original manuscripts owned by Mrs. S. Hawthorne of Newtownstewart, County Tyrone. These copies are held in PRONI [reference number T1585/1-2]. The letters were later published in Hutton, Brian (1962), ‘Two Letters from Fort Sumter’, The Irish Sword 5, no. 20, pp. 179-183.

Materials pertaining to two letters written in 1861 by Private John Thompson, 1st U.S. Artillery, to his father Robert Thompson, Articlave, County Derry, during the American Civil War. John Thompson was a member of the small Federal Garrison in Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and his letters contain an eyewitness account of the siege of Fort Sumter by Confederate troops which marked the
commencement of the Civil War.
The series contains PRONI’s transcripts of the two letters, a journal article based upon the letters [Hutton, Brian (1962), ‘Two Letters from Fort Sumter’, The Irish Sword 5, no. 20, pp. 179-183], and Kerby A. Miller’s 1999 email correspondence with Bill Gienapp regarding the letters.