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James B. Thompson

Medal of Honor recipient

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 7, 2026
Entity authorityQ17423802
Source-derived summary

James B. Thompson (1843 – August 31, 1875) was an American soldier who fought in the American Civil War. Thompson received his country's highest award for bravery during combat, the Medal of Honor. Thompson's medal was won for capturing the flag of the Confederate's 15th Georgia Infantry at the Battle of Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. He was honored with the award on December 1, 1864.

Thompson was born in Juniata County, Pennsylvania, entered service in Perrysville, and was later buried in Port Royal, Pennsylvania.

Medal of Honor citation

The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Sergeant James B. Thompson, United States Army, for extraordinary heroism on 3 July 1863, while serving with Company G, 1st Pennsylvania Rifles, in action at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, for capture of flag of 15th Georgia Infantry (Confederate States of America).

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “James B. Thompson” is medal of Honor recipient. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through James, Thompson and Medal, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1843, 1875, 1863, 1864—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1843. For this dossier, James, Thompson and Medal is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “medal of Honor recipient” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q17423802. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1843, 1875, 1863 and 1864.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “James B. Thompson”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow James B. Thompson primary sources, James B. Thompson archive and James research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from James B. Thompson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.