J. Thompson Brown

John Thompson Brown (February 6, 1835 – May 6, 1864) was a Confederate States Army colonel and artillerist in the American Civil War. He participated in the first exchange of cannon fire, in fact the first shots fired, between a Confederate force and a Union force in Virginia during the Civil War. Brown's company of the Virginia (soon to be Confederate) Richmond Howitzers artillery regiment, with Brown in command according to some sources, and a Union force, the gunboat USS Yankee, had a minor engagement at the Battle of Gloucester Point, Virginia on May 7, 1861. Neither side suffered casualties. Brown is credited by some sources with firing the first shot of the Civil War in Virginia at that first, minor engagement in the state. During the war, he advanced from the rank of first lieutenant to the rank of colonel in charge of a division of artillery in the Army of Northern Virginia. He was killed by a sharpshooter at the Battle of the Wilderness, May 6, 1864.