William Thompson ( Iowa ) William Thompson ( November 10 , 1813 – October 6 , 1897 ) , a lawyer , clerk , newspaperman , longtime Army officer , and Democrat , was the first person elected to Congress from Iowa ' s 1st congressional district . His race for re - election in 1848 was the only Iowa U . S . House election to be revoted . After Thompson ' s opponent , Whig candidate Daniel F . Miller , challenged Thompson ' s apparent victory , Congress ordered his seat vacated and a special election conducted , which Thompson lost . He was a cavalry officer in the Union Army during the Civil War , and in the regular army for ten years thereafter . Thompson was born in Fayette County , Pennsylvania , where he attended the common schools . He assisted his father to clear a farm in the dense forests of Ohio , and when twenty - one began to study law in the office of Columbus Delano . In 1839 he went by steamboat down the Ohio River and up the Mississippi River to Montrose in what was then Iowa Territory , before settling in what is now Mount Pleasant , Iowa . In 1843 , he was a member of the Iowa Territory House of Representatives . He served as chief clerk of the two succeeding sessions , and became secretary of the 1846 Iowa state . Iowa was admitted to the union effective December 1846 , and given two seats in the U . S . House . The First Iowa General Assembly established the boundaries of those districts in February 1847 , and set elections for August 2 , 1847 to name their representatives in the Thirtieth Congress ( from December 1847 to March 1849 ) . Thompson , running as a Democrat , defeated Whig Party candidate J . B . Browne by 544 votes . The legality of Iowa ' s 1847 congressional elections was questioned because Iowa Governor Ansel Briggs never signed the law authorizing the elections , but the U . S . House nevertheless seated the winners . In 1848 , Thompson was renominated , and ran in the August general election against Whig Party member Daniel F . Miller . Thompson was certified as the winner by the Iowa Secretary of State , and upon presenting his credentials to the U . S . House was initially allowed to continue representing his district . In the Thirty - first Congress , Thompson served as chairman of the House Committee on Expenditures in the Post Office Department . However , in response to a challenge filed by Miller alleging that Thompson ' s law partner stole the poll book for Kanesville ( now Council Bluffs ) , and Democrats ' claim that Whigs had bought votes of Mormons in Kanesville , the House declared Thompson ' s seat vacant on June 29 , 1850 . The special election was a rematch of the 1848 election , but the second time , Miller defeated Thompson . In all , Thompson served in Congress from December 1847 to June 29 , 1850 . For several years he was editor of the " Iowa State Gazette " . He was elected chief clerk of the Iowa House of Representatives in 1861 , by a unanimous vote . On July 31 , 1861 , after the outbreak of the Civil War , Thompson was commissioned as a captain in Company E of the 1st Regiment Iowa Volunteer Cavalry . On May 18 , 1863 , he was promoted to major , and on June 20 , 1864 , to colonel . On March 13 , 1865 , as the end of the war approached , he became a brevetted brigadier general of the Volunteers . When the Civil War ended , Thompson ' s military service did not . On July 28 , 1866 , at the request of General George Custer , he was recommissioned as a captain in the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the regular army , and fought in the Indian Wars . He remained with the Army until his retirement on December 15 , 1875 , just a few months before Custer and most of the 7th Cavalry was massacred at the Battle of Little Big Horn . Thompson died in Tacoma , Washington and was buried there .