Original 1860s Carte de Visite of Confederate Brigadier General M. Jeff Thompson, "The Swamp Fox of the Confederacy" – E. & H.T. Anthony, New York

Original Civil War-era CDV of Meriwether Jeff Thompson (1826–1876), one of the most colorful figures of the war in the West, published by E. & H.T. Anthony, 501 Broadway, New York. Anthony was the largest photographic supplier in America and the leading publisher of "celebrity" portrait cards of the war. It sold likenesses of Union and Confederate figures alike to a public eager to fill family albums.

Thompson is shown seated, three-quarter length, in a double-breasted general's coat with stars on the collar, a sword belt with rectangular plate, sword and sword knot. This is the best-known wartime likeness of him.

Identification

• Front: period pencil identification below the image, "Gen Jeff Thompson"
• Reverse: period pencil "Thompson" above the Anthony backmark
• These are period owner identifications, not an autograph.

The Swamp Fox of the Confederacy

• Born January 22, 1826, at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, the town that John Brown's 1859 raid would make famous.
• Missouri frontier man. He moved west in 1847 and settled in St. Joseph, Missouri, where he worked as a surveyor and civil engineer, promoted the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad, and served as mayor in the late 1850s. St. Joseph was soon the starting point of the Pony Express.
• 1861. A fierce secessionist, he is said to have pulled down the U.S. flag from the St. Joseph post office himself. He was elected brigadier general of the Missouri State Guard and given command of the First Military District, the swamps and lowlands of southeast Missouri and the Bootheel.
• "Swamp Fox." Short of men, arms and supplies, he waged a guerrilla-style war from the cypress swamps along the Mississippi. He struck Union outposts, railroads and bridges, including the raid that burned the Big River Bridge on the Iron Mountain Railroad in October 1861, then vanished back into the swamps. The press compared him to Francis Marion, the Revolutionary War "Swamp Fox," and the name stayed with him.
• His war of words with Frémont. When Union Gen. John C. Frémont issued his August 1861 proclamation declaring martial law in Missouri and ordering the execution of armed civilians, Thompson answered with a counter-proclamation. It promised to "hang, draw and quarter" a Union soldier for every Southern man executed. His colorful proclamations and dispatches made him a favorite of newspapers North and South.
• Fredericktown, October 21, 1861: he fought a Union column in southeast Missouri and was forced to withdraw.
• A warship in his name. The Confederate River Defense Fleet ram CSS General M. Jeff Thompson fought at the Battle of Memphis on June 6, 1862, where it was set afire and destroyed in front of thousands of spectators on the Memphis bluffs.
• Prisoner of war. He was captured in Arkansas in August 1863 and held in Union prisons, including Johnson's Island and Fort Delaware, until he was exchanged in 1864.
• Price's Missouri Raid, 1864. He returned to the field and commanded Jo Shelby's famed "Iron Brigade" of Missouri cavalry during Gen. Sterling Price's last great raid into Missouri, which ended after the defeat at Westport.
• Surrender, May 1865. He surrendered his command in northeast Arkansas, one of the later Confederate surrenders of the war.
• After the war he worked as an engineer in New Orleans, including service as Louisiana state engineer. He died at St. Joseph, Missouri, on September 5, 1876. His memoirs were later published as The Civil War Reminiscences of General M. Jeff Thompson.

Description & Condition

• Standard CDV mount with clipped top corners, typical of the 1860s.
• Backmark: "Published by E. & H.T. Anthony, 501 Broadway, New York. Manufacturers of the best Photographic Albums," within an ornate hanging-frame design.
• Toning and light surface marks as shown in scans. Scans are of the actual item.
• From a single-owner Baltimore County, Maryland collection.

Wartime portraits of the Trans-Mississippi and Missouri commanders turn up far less often than those of the Virginia generals. This is a good example for a Missouri, Western Theater or Confederate general collection.

Free shipping, packed flat in a sleeve with stiff board support.

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