M. Jeff Thompson

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M. Jeff Thompson

Meriwether Jeff Thompson (January 22, 1826 – September 5, 1876) was a brigadier general in the Missouri State Guard during the American Civil War. He served in the Confederate Army as a cavalry commander, and had the unusual distinction of having a ship in the Confederate Navy named for him.

Thompson was born in Virginia into a family with a strong military tradition on both sides. He moved to St. Joseph, Missouri in 1847, where he served as the city engineer. He later supervised the construction of the western branch of the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad. Thompson served as Mayor of St. Joseph from 1857–1860. He presided over the ceremony inaugurating the first ride of the Pony Express on April 3, 1860.

Thompson was a colonel in the Missouri state guard at the outbreak of the Civil War. In late July of 1861, he was appointed brigadier general of the First Division, Missouri State Guards. He commanded the First Military District of Missouri, which covered the swampy southeastern quarter of the state from St. Louis to the Mississippi River. Thompson's battalion soon became known as the "Swamp Rats" for their exploits. He gained renown as the "Swamp Fox of the Confederacy."

When Union General John C. Fremont issued an emancipation proclamation purporting to free the slaves in Missouri, Thompson declared a counter-proclamation and his force of 3,000 soldiers began raiding Union positions near the border in October. On October 15, 1861, Thompson led a cavalry attack on the Iron Mountain Railroad bridge over the Big River near Blackwell in Jefferson County. After successfully burning the bridge, Thompson retreated to join his infantry in Fredericktown. Soon afterwards, he was defeated at the Battle of Fredericktown and withdrew, leaving southeastern Missouri in Union control.

After briefly commanding rams in the Confederate riverine fleet in 1862, Thompson was reassigned to the Trans-Mississippi region. There, he engaged in a number of battles before returning to Arkansas in 1863 to accompany Gen. John S. Marmaduke on his raid into Missouri. Thompson was captured in August in Arkansas, and spent time in St. Louis' Gratiot Street prison, as well as at the Fort Delaware and Johnson's Island prisoner-of-war camps, before being exchanged in 1864 for a Union general. Later that year, Thompson participated in Major General Sterling Price's Missouri expedition, taking command of "Jo" Shelby's famed "Iron Brigade" when Shelby became division commander. In March of 1865, Thompson was appointed commander of the Northern Sub-District of Arkansas. He surrendered his troops on May 11, 1865, in Jacksonport, Arkansas.

After the war, Thompson moved to New Orleans, where he returned to civil engineering. He designed a program for improving the Louisiana swamps, a job that eventually destroyed his health. He is buried in Mount Mora Cemetery in St. Joseph.

A ship in the Confederate Navy, the CSS General M. Jeff Thompson, was named in Thompson's honor. The side-wheel river steamer was converted at New Orleans to a "cottonclad" ram in early 1862. It was commissioned in April and sent up the Mississippi River to join the River Defense Fleet in Tennessee waters, seeing its first action in the Battle of Fort Pillow. After being set afire by gunfire from Union warships in the Battle of Memphis on June 6, 1862, the ship ran aground and soon blew up.