Seymour D. (Seymour Dwight) Thompson

Born in Illinois in 1842 and raised partly in Iowa, Seymour Dwight Thompson served in the Civil War and later wrote Recollections with the Third Iowa Regiment, a memoir drawn from that experience. That mix of direct observation and strong opinion seems to have stayed with him throughout his career, giving his writing an energetic, practical tone.

After the war, he built a major reputation as a lawyer, editor, and legal author in St. Louis. He helped edit the Central Law Journal and produced substantial works on negligence, corporations, trials, juries, and other areas of law, becoming known in his time as a prolific legal writer rather than only a memoirist.

Thompson died in 1904. His books remain of interest for two different reasons: some belong to the world of nineteenth-century American law, while others offer a personal window into the Civil War and the generation shaped by it.