George W. Thompkins

He Seized Their Battle Flag as the Enemy Rallied

George W. Thompkins was born on April 9, 1841, in Orange County, New York. He grew up in the region that would later provide many of the men for the 124th New York Infantry. Surviving military records preserve far more information about his Civil War service than about his childhood or early civilian occupation, so the clearest documented chapter of his life begins when the United States was already deep in civil war.

On August 11, 1862, Thompkins enlisted at Port Jervis, New York, agreeing to serve for three years. He was twenty years old according to the official regimental roster. On September 5, 1862, he mustered into Company F of the 124th New York Infantry as a Private.

The 124th New York was organized at Goshen and became widely known as the “Orange Blossoms,” a nickname reflecting the regiment’s strong connection with Orange County. Company F drew heavily from Port Jervis and Deer Park, making Thompkins part of a regiment rooted closely in his home region.

Only a day after the regiment formally mustered into federal service, it left New York for the war. The 124th eventually became part of the Army of the Potomac and served first with the III Corps before organizational changes placed it within the II Corps. Over the following years, the regiment experienced some of the most demanding campaigning of the Civil War.

During the period Thompkins remained with Company F, the 124th New York fought through campaigns that included Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, operations along the North Anna River, Cold Harbor, and the prolonged fighting around Petersburg. The regiment repeatedly suffered heavy casualties, especially during some of the Army of the Potomac’s most violent engagements.

At Gettysburg in July 1863, the 124th fought as part of the III Corps and became heavily engaged on the second day of the battle. Its commanding officer, Colonel Augustus Van Horne Ellis, was killed, and the regiment suffered severe losses. The battle became one of the defining episodes in the history of the Orange Blossoms.

The regiment continued campaigning through 1864. At the Wilderness and Spotsylvania it again suffered significant casualties, followed by further operations at Cold Harbor and Petersburg. By this stage of the war, the 124th had accumulated years of combat experience and had been reduced substantially from the strength with which it originally entered service.

Thompkins remained in Company F and, on March 1, 1865, was promoted from Private to Corporal. The promotion came at a critical moment. The Confederate position around Petersburg was weakening, but General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia remained dangerous and capable of launching aggressive attacks.

Only twenty-four days after Thompkins became a Corporal, the action occurred that would permanently connect his name with the Medal of Honor.

Before dawn on March 25, 1865, Confederate forces launched a major assault against the Union lines at Petersburg. Their principal objective was Fort Stedman, and the surprise attack initially achieved significant success. Confederate troops broke into the Union position, captured the fort, and attempted to widen the breach.

Union forces quickly organized counterattacks. Fighting spread through the area as Federal troops attempted to recover lost ground and drive the Confederates back toward their original positions. The 124th New York became involved in the operations that followed the initial Confederate attack.

During the fighting on March 25, the regiment advanced against Confederate troops near the Petersburg defenses. The engagement developed into a successful Union counterattack in which enemy soldiers, officers, weapons, and battle colors were captured.

It was during this action that Corporal George W. Thompkins performed the deed for which he became nationally recognized.

A Confederate officer was holding his regiment’s colors and attempting to rally his men. In Civil War combat, such a moment could be extremely important. Regimental flags served as visual rallying points amid smoke, confusion, noise, and broken formations. Soldiers looked toward their colors to determine where their regiment was forming and whether it was advancing or withdrawing.

Because of this, the man carrying a battle flag frequently became an obvious and dangerous target. The loss of the colors could damage morale and disrupt a regiment’s ability to reorganize during combat.

Thompkins moved against the Confederate officer and captured the battle flag.

The act was far more than simply taking a piece of cloth from an opponent. He seized the colors at the precise moment when they were being used to rally Confederate troops. By taking them, he removed one of the most visible symbols around which those soldiers were attempting to reorganize.

The official Medal of Honor citation preserved the essential facts in remarkably concise language. It recognized Thompkins for capturing a Confederate flag from an officer who was holding the colors while rallying his men.

The wider action was a Union success. Confederate forces that had initially broken into the Federal lines were eventually driven back, and the Battle of Fort Stedman became the last major offensive operation undertaken by Lee’s army during the Siege of Petersburg.

For Thompkins, recognition came extraordinarily quickly.

On April 6, 1865, only twelve days after his heroic action, George W. Thompkins was awarded the Medal of Honor.

The timing is notable because many Civil War soldiers waited years or even decades before their acts of valor were formally recognized. Thompkins received his decoration while the war itself was still reaching its dramatic conclusion.

The Medal of Honor had been established during the Civil War. Congress authorized the Army version in 1862, providing the United States with a national military decoration for extraordinary conduct. At that time the Army did not possess the broad hierarchy of valor decorations that would exist in later generations, making the Medal of Honor the central federal award for exceptional military heroism.

Thompkins’s decoration therefore belongs to the original Civil War period of the Army Medal of Honor. For the VictoriaCross.ca database, his verified award is represented as Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1865.

The 1865 date reflects the year in which the medal was presented. No additional clasp, bar, star, oak leaf cluster, or other device has been verified with his single Medal of Honor, so the decoration is represented without an attachment.

Just days after Thompkins received the award, the strategic situation changed completely. Petersburg fell, Richmond was abandoned, and on April 9, 1865, General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House.

The 124th New York participated in the final campaign that brought the war in Virginia to an end. After Confederate resistance collapsed, the regiment moved toward Washington as the Union Army began the difficult transition from wartime operations to demobilization.

Thompkins remained with Company F through the end of his military service. On June 3, 1865, he was mustered out with the regiment near Washington, D.C. His official record therefore shows a continuous progression from Private in 1862 to Corporal in 1865, followed by honorable completion of his wartime service.

The surviving historical record provides comparatively little detail about Thompkins’s civilian life after the Civil War. Unlike his wartime career, which is documented in military rosters and Medal of Honor records, his later employment and personal activities are not preserved with the same level of certainty.

What is clear is that he lived for nearly seven decades after the war. He eventually resided in Schenectady, New York, carrying the memory of the Civil War far into the twentieth century.

His name also appears in two forms in historical records. Military documents generally identify him as George W. Thompkins, while the surname Tompkins also appears in official and later records. His burial marker uses the Tompkins spelling, preserving this variation in his historical identity.

George W. Thompkins died on February 22, 1934, in Schenectady, New York. He was buried at Vale Cemetery in Schenectady, where his grave continues to mark the resting place of one of the Civil War Medal of Honor recipients associated with New York.

By the time of his death, nearly sixty-nine years had passed since the morning at Petersburg that defined his military legacy. The battlefield had changed, the veterans of the Civil War had largely disappeared, and the nation had already experienced several later wars.

Yet the event that earned Thompkins the Medal of Honor remained remarkably simple and dramatic.

As Confederate troops attempted to rally around their colors, Corporal George W. Thompkins moved forward and seized the battle flag from the officer holding it. Twelve days later, the United States formally recognized that act with the Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1865.

His story remains one of a young New Yorker who entered the Army as a Private, endured years of service with the battle-tested Orange Blossoms, rose to Corporal near the end of the war, and then captured an enemy standard during one of the final major battles around Petersburg.