Meriwether Jefferson Thompson was born in Jefferson County, Virginia, into a family with a strong military tradition on both sides. He received basic training in military tactics in Charleston, South Carolina, but was not appointed to a military academy. Following his education, he found employment as a store clerk in a few Virginia and Pennsylvania towns. He moved to Liberty, Missouri, in 1847 and St. Joseph the following year, beginning as a store clerk before taking up surveying and serving as the city engineer. He later supervised the construction of the western branch of the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad. He married Emma Catherine Hays in 1848. He served as the seventh Mayor of St. Joseph, Missouri from 1857–1860. He presided over the ceremony inaugurating the first ride of the Pony Express on April 3, 1860. He gained national attention in May, 1861, when he cut down a United States flag from the St. Joseph Post Office flag pole and threw it down to an angry crowd of southern sympathizers who shredded it to pieces.
Thompson was a lieutenant-colonel in the Missouri state militia at the outbreak of the Civil War. On July 25, 1861, he was appointed brigadier-general of the 1st Division, Missouri State Guard. 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." Although Thompson frequently petitioned for the Confederate rank of brigadier-general it was never granted. His brigadier rank came from his Missouri State Guard service. When Union Major-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 Military Prison, as well as at the Fort Delaware and Johnson's Island prisoner-of-war camps. Eventually, he was 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. He served competently in this role. In March 1865, Thompson was appointed commander of the Northern Sub-District of Arkansas. He agreed to surrender his command at Chalk Bluff, Arkansas on May 11, 1865, and agreed to have his men assemble at Wittsburg and Jacksonport, Arkansas to lay down their arms and receive their paroles. Thompson's command was widely dispersed throughout northeast Arkansas, more for reasons of available forage than anything else. About a third of his men refused to surrender. Shelby's Missouri Brigade, along with elements of Green's and Jackman's Missouri brigades, lit out for Mexico. Some Missouri units disbanded rather than surrender their colors. Many men simply went home. While most the men on the Jacksonport parole lists actually served in the unit with which they surrendered, some men were attached themselves to various regiments solely for the purpose of surrendering. A few probably never saw any service except marching with their relatives and neighbors to Jacksonport to receive the paroles, which were thought to provide the former confederates with some degree of protection from later arrest or capture.
Later life
After the American Civil 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 returned to St. Joseph, Missouri in 1876 where he succumbed to tuberculosis. He is buried in Mount Mora Cemetery in St. Joseph, Missouri.
Honors
In early 1862 at New Orleans, a side-wheel river steamer was converted to a "Cottonclad" ram and named after Thompson. The CSS General M. Jeff. Thompson was sent up the Mississippi that April to join the River Defense Fleet in Tennessee waters, seeing its first action at Plum Point Bend. On June the 6th, after being set afire by gunfire at Memphis, the General M. Jeff. Thompson ran aground and soon blew up.
