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 the Confederate Army as a cavalry commander , and had the unusual distinction of having a ship in the Confederate Navy named for him . Early life . Meriwether Jeff Thompson was born at Harpers Ferry , Virginia , now West Virginia into a family with a strong military tradition on both sides . 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 . Thompson served as St . Joseph mayor from 1857 – 1860 . He presided over the ceremony inaugurating the first ride of the Pony Express on April 3 , 1860 . Thompson also gained national attention in May , 1861 , when he cut down a union 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 . Civil War . Thompson was a colonel in the Missouri state militia at the outbreak of the Civil War . In late July 1861 , he was appointed brigadier general of the First 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 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 camp s , ( " Poor old Jeff , how my heart went out to him ; he a prisoner and his devoted wife in a madhouse " . Source : My Life and My Lectures by Major Lamar Fontaine , a prisoner with M . Jeff Thompson in Fort Delaware , p . 238 ) 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 . Surrender . In March 1865 , Thompson was appointed commander of the Northern Sub - District of Arkansas . Brigadier General Thompson 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 . CSS " General M . Jeff Thompson " . 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 Plum Point Bend . 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 . Postbellum career . 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 returned to St . Joseph , Missouri in 1876 where he succumbed to tuberculosis . He is buried in Mount Mora Cemetery in St . Joseph , Missouri .