Benton L. Thompson was born in Mt. Gilead, Ohio. He joined the Union Army on August 21, 1862 as a private in the 118th Ohio Infantry. He missed the Siege of Knoxville by several days, and was mustered out of the army on June 24, 1865 at Salisbury, North Carolina. The Siege of Knoxville was part of the Knoxville Campaign, a series of American Civil War battles and maneuvers in East Tennessee during the fall of 1863. Union forces under Major General Ambrose Burnside occupied Knoxville, Tennessee, and Confederate forces under Lieutenant General James Longstreet were detached from General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee at Chattanooga to prevent Burnside's reinforcement of the besieged Union forces there. Although Longstreet was one of General Robert E. Lee's best corps commanders in the East, he was unsuccessful in his role as an independent commander in the West and accomplished little during the campaign in East Tennessee.

This Civil War letter was written by Benton L. Thompson of the Union Army's 118th Ohio Infantry on November 22, 1863 and contains general details of his journey to Knoxville, Tennessee by railway and by foot in preparation for the Siege of Knoxville.