At the age of eighteen he left his newly found occupation and went to Florida with Acting-Governor Wescott as his private secretary. About the same time he began the study of law. In 1835, he was at work again as a printer, in the office of the Sentinel at Augusta, Georgia. Later on in the same year he became a volunteer with the Richmond Blues and served for nearly two years in the Seminole war. Late in the autumn of 1836 Mr. Thompson issued the first number of the Augusta Mirror, but it proved a dismal failure. It was during the Mirror trouble that the young editor became the duly wedded husband of a daughter of Joseph Carrie, a well-to-do merchant of Barnwell, South Carolina, and Augusta, Georgia. After the death of the Mirror, Mr. Thompson took editorial charge of the Madison Miscellany, and it was his writings for this journal that in after years made him famous as a humorist. During his idle moments Mr. Thompson began a series of letters from “Major Joseph Jones of Pineville.” These were begun in 1842, and became very popular--so much so, in fact, that before a year had elapsed after their first appearance, they were collected in a volume and published under the title of Major Jones’ Courtship. In the preface of the book the author dedicated the work to his old commander in the Seminole war, General Duncan L. Clinch. Edition after edition of the book was issued, and it was known in every city and town on this side of the Atlantic. Later, it was reprinted in London, where it had an enormous run for several years. A recent writer in a New Haven paper says of Major Jones’ Courtship: “Its style is rollicking without grossness; piquant, yet devoid of all exaggeration. Re-reading these letters to-day, the freshness and vigor, which so charmed my youthful fancy for the grotesque in home life, are reflected from every page.” The preface of the book was written April 10, 1843, and among other things contains the following: