Henry A. Thompson

Henry A. Thompson was a United States Marine Corps private and Medal of Honor recipient whose place in American military history was secured during the final months of the Civil War at Fort Fisher, North Carolina. Official Medal of Honor records list him as Henry A. Thompson and also preserve the alternate name Roderick P. Connelly. Because surviving authoritative records do not completely resolve the circumstances behind the two names, the safest historical treatment is to retain Henry A. Thompson as the official Medal of Honor name while recognizing Roderick P. Connelly as a documented alternate identity. Thompson was born in England in 1841. Details of his childhood, family background, education, and migration to the United States are not preserved in sufficient authoritative detail to reconstruct them confidently. By the Civil War period, however, he had entered the United States Marine Corps and his military service was credited to Pennsylvania. Thompson served with the Marine detachment associated with USS Minnesota, one of the large steam frigates of the Union Navy. Although his branch was the United States Marine Corps, Marines serving aboard naval vessels formed an integral part of nineteenth-century shipboard operations. They provided security aboard ship, supported gun crews when necessary, maintained discipline, and could be organized into armed landing parties for operations ashore. USS Minnesota had already accumulated a substantial Civil War record before Thompson’s Medal of Honor action. The frigate served in the Union blockade and participated in major naval operations along the Atlantic coast. By late 1864 and early 1865, Minnesota became part of the enormous naval force assembled against Fort Fisher, the Confederate fortress guarding the approaches to Wilmington, North Carolina. Wilmington was strategically important because it remained one of the Confederacy’s most valuable connections with overseas trade. Blockade runners used the Cape Fear River and the approaches protected by Fort Fisher to bring military supplies into the Confederacy and export valuable commodities. As other Confederate ports fell or were effectively closed, Wilmington’s importance increased. Fort Fisher protected this maritime lifeline. The fort was an enormous earthwork complex positioned near the mouth of the Cape Fear River. Its heavy guns, defensive traverses, palisades, and surrounding obstacles made it an extremely difficult position to attack. The combination of its fortifications and geography meant that taking Fort Fisher required cooperation between the United States Army and Navy. An initial Union expedition against the fort in December 1864 failed to capture it. The Union command soon organized another attempt, this time under Rear Admiral David D. Porter for the naval component and Major General Alfred H. Terry for the Army forces. The second operation began in January 1865. Porter assembled one of the most powerful naval concentrations of the Civil War. Dozens of warships bombarded Fort Fisher while Terry’s soldiers landed north of the Confederate position. USS Minnesota was among the vessels participating in this massive operation. For several days, naval artillery subjected the fort to an intense bombardment. The objective was not simply to damage its guns but to suppress Confederate defenders sufficiently for ground forces to advance. The final assault was scheduled for January 15, 1865. Porter organized a large naval landing force consisting of sailors and Marines from numerous ships. The sailors were intended to make a rapid assault against the seaward side of Fort Fisher, while Marines armed with rifles supported the advance and engaged Confederate defenders. At the same time, Terry’s Army troops attacked from the landward side. USS Minnesota contributed a substantial landing contingent. Private Henry A. Thompson went ashore with the assaulting party from his ship. Once ashore, Thompson and the other members of the naval force had to cross open terrain exposed to Confederate rifle and artillery fire. The closer they approached the fort, the more dangerous the situation became. Confederate defenders concentrated fire on the advancing sailors and Marines, inflicting severe casualties among both officers and enlisted men. The naval assault encountered particularly intense resistance. Despite that fire, Thompson continued toward the Confederate position. According to his official Medal of Honor record, Thompson advanced partly through a breach in the fort’s palisades. In doing so, he reached a point nearer to Fort Fisher than any other man from USS Minnesota. His advance placed him in an exceptionally exposed position. The attacking force around him suffered heavily. Officers and enlisted men were killed or wounded, and the organization of the naval assault began to deteriorate. More than two-thirds of the men in Thompson’s portion of the attack eventually became overwhelmed by the situation and retreated. Thompson did not immediately join that retreat. He remained with the smaller party that continued holding its position near the fort. The Navy’s direct assault on the seaward face ultimately failed to break into Fort Fisher. Confederate fire had inflicted devastating losses and forced much of the naval force back. Nevertheless, the naval assault had a significant effect on the battle by drawing Confederate attention and manpower toward the seaward defenses. At the same time, Terry’s Army troops successfully attacked from the landward side. Union soldiers entered the fort and fought their way through its massive traverses in a prolonged series of close-range engagements. By nightfall, the Confederate position had become untenable, and Fort Fisher eventually fell to Union forces. Thompson remained with the surviving naval party until darkness. When the party finally withdrew safely, Thompson assisted in bringing back wounded men as well as weapons and colors. This final part of his action was particularly important. He had already advanced farther toward the fort than any other man from his ship, but his recognized conduct continued after the main assault had collapsed. Rather than simply seeking personal safety, he remained with the smaller group until the situation permitted an organized withdrawal. The official Medal of Honor citation therefore recognized several connected elements of his conduct: advancing through the breach in the palisades, reaching closer to the fort than any other man from Minnesota, remaining after much of the assaulting force retreated, and helping ensure that the wounded, arms, and colors were brought away. The battle demonstrated the kind of ground-combat role that Marines performed during the Civil War. Thompson was assigned to a naval vessel, but the action for which he received the Medal of Honor occurred ashore as part of an amphibious assault against a fortified enemy position. For that reason, Infantry is the most appropriate Combat Achievement classification for his Medal of Honor action rather than Surface Naval. His branch remained the United States Marine Corps, but his heroic action itself was direct ground combat. The capture of Fort Fisher had major strategic consequences. With the fortress in Union hands, Confederate control of the Cape Fear approaches was effectively broken. Wilmington could no longer function securely as the Confederacy’s principal remaining Atlantic gateway for blockade-running. Union forces soon advanced against the remaining defenses protecting Wilmington, and the city fell in February 1865. The loss further weakened the Confederate war effort only weeks before the final collapse of the major Confederate armies. Thompson’s actions on January 15 were formally recognized with the Medal of Honor. His recognition was recorded in Navy General Order No. 59, dated June 22, 1865. That date is important for the correct historical classification of his award. Although Thompson was a Marine, the Marine Corps fell under the Department of the Navy, and Civil War Marines received the Navy version of the Medal of Honor rather than an Army version. His correct database designation is therefore: Medal of Honor 1862–1912 Navy — 1865. The Navy Medal of Honor itself had been created during the opening months of the Civil War. Congress authorized the naval Medal of Honor in December 1861, making it the earliest version of what became the nation’s highest military decoration. The Army version followed in 1862. During the Civil War, the Navy Medal of Honor was available primarily to enlisted sailors and Marines. The American military did not yet possess the extensive hierarchy of personal valor decorations introduced in later generations. Decorations such as the Navy Cross and Silver Star did not yet exist. For enlisted Navy and Marine Corps personnel, the Medal of Honor therefore served as the principal national recognition for extraordinary battlefield or naval conduct. Thompson’s award belongs directly to this original Civil War Medal of Honor tradition. His decoration was not posthumous. He survived the Fort Fisher assault and was alive when the award was officially recognized in 1865. No second Medal of Honor, bar, clasp, star, or other device has been verified for him. His Medal of Honor should therefore appear as one plain award with no additional attachment. The later Navy Civil War Medal must not be added to Thompson’s verified medal rack. That campaign decoration was not in existence during Thompson’s lifetime. He died on February 16, 1889, decades before the Navy established its later system of Civil War campaign recognition. Under the project’s Navy and Marine Corps Civil War rules, a veteran who died before the relevant twentieth-century authorization and issuance period cannot simply be assigned the later medal retrospectively. There is also no recipient-specific issuance record proving Thompson personally received such a medal. The Army Civil War Campaign Medal is equally inapplicable because Thompson was a Marine, not an Army soldier. The project’s branch-specific correction explicitly prevents the Army Civil War medal from being assigned to Navy or Marine Corps veterans. His verified medal history therefore remains deliberately limited to one decoration: Medal of Honor 1862–1912 Navy — 1865, with no device or clasp. The surviving historical record becomes much thinner after Thompson’s military service. Unlike senior officers whose postwar careers were often extensively documented, little reliable information survives concerning Thompson’s occupation, residence, marriage, family, or civilian activities after the Civil War. For that reason, those details should not be reconstructed from speculation or from people with similar names. What can be established is that Thompson survived for more than two decades after the war. He died on February 16, 1889. His burial is recorded at Calvary Cemetery in Woodside, New York, and the grave is associated with the alternate name Roderick P. Connelly. This burial evidence is another reason both names must remain connected when researching his life. Thompson’s historical significance rests primarily on the Fort Fisher assault. He was not a general commanding thousands of soldiers, nor a naval officer directing a fleet. He was a Marine private serving aboard a Union warship who went ashore with an assaulting force against one of the strongest Confederate coastal fortifications remaining in the war. On January 15, 1865, Private Henry A. Thompson left the relative protection of USS Minnesota and landed on the North Carolina coast with the naval brigade. He advanced under intense Confederate fire, moved partly through a breach in the palisades, and reached closer to Fort Fisher than any other man from his ship. When much of the attacking force broke and withdrew, he remained with the smaller party near the fort until darkness. He then helped bring the wounded, weapons, and colors safely away. The naval assault itself was repulsed, but the combined Army-Navy operation succeeded in capturing Fort Fisher that night. Five months later, Thompson’s actions were formally recognized under General Order No. 59 with the Medal of Honor. His final verified military profile therefore records Henry A. Thompson, also known as Roderick P. Connelly, as a United States Marine Corps Private assigned to USS Minnesota, with Infantry as the appropriate Combat Achievement classification for his Fort Fisher ground assault. His sole verified decoration is Medal of Honor 1862–1912 Navy — 1865, with no verified device or clasp. No Navy Civil War Medal or Army Civil War Campaign Medal should be added to his final rack.