M. Jeff Thompson left Virginia after his applications to West Point and Lexington Military Academy were rejected. Frustrated in his attempts to be a professional soldier, he worked as a clerk, drifting from city to city, until he stopped in Liberty, Missouri. He briefly worked as a fur trapper before settling in St. Joseph. Before the war, he surveyed for a railroad, organized a gas company, and dabbled in real estate. In 1859, the likable and prosperous Thompson was elected mayor of St. Joseph.

When the Civil war began, Thompson, an avowed secessionist, organized a battalion of volunteers and issued a statewide proclamation calling fellow citizens to embrace the Confederate cause. When Governor Clairborne F. Jackson rejected his battalion, Thompson rode south with his command. Calling themselves "Swamp Rats," these Missouri Confederates began raiding Union posts and towns.

Over the next four years, Thompson -- a natural leader -- became feared as the "Swamp Fox of the Confederacy." He operated both as a part of Confederate armies and independently, fighting valiantly for the Southern Cause in Missouri and Arkansas. On May 10, 1862, Thompson directed the Confederate rams in action at Plum Run Bend, Tennessee. In 1863, he offered his services to General Kirby Smith in the Trans-Mississippi Department. While working on Smith's staff, he was surprised and captured by Missouri State Cavalry on August 22, and was imprisoned until exchanged June, 1864.

Returning to Missouri, Thompson (who called himself a general) participated in Major General Sterling Price's raid into the state. He bravely led his brigade of cavalry at Westport on October 23. After spending the war's final months in the swamps, he finally surrendered on May 9, 1865.

Thompson drifted again after the war. He established a business in Memphis that failed within a year and then moved to New Orleans. He died in St. Joseph, Missouri, on September 5, 1876.

Also:

The Not as Famous: Gen. James Gillpatrick Blunt

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