make allegiance to Missouri paramount to that of the United
States.

95

As finally arranged the Divisions were commanded as follows:

First Division, M. Jeff Thompson.

Second Division, Thos. A. Harris.

Third Division, M. L. Clark.

Fourth Division, Wm. Y. Slack.

Fifth Division, A. E. Steen.

Sixth Division, M. M. Parsons.

Seventh Division, J. H. McBride.

Eighth Division, Jas L. Rains.

All of these were men of decided ability and standing, and Parsons, M.
L. Clark and Slack had served with credit in the Mexican War. Parsons
became a Major-General in the Confederate army, and Clark, Slack, Steen
and Rains Brigadier-Generals.

A striking figure among them was M. Jeff Thompson, called the "Missouri
Swamp Fox" by his admirers, and who aspired to become the Francis Marion
of the Southern Confederacy. He was a tall, lank, wiry man, at least
six feet high, about 35 years old, with a thin, long, hatchet face, and
high, sharp nose, blue eyes, and thick, yellow hair combed behind his
ears. He wore a slouch white hat with feather and a bob-tailed coat,
short pantaloons, and high rough boots. A white-handled bowie-knife,
stuck perpendicularly in his belt in the middle of his back, completed
his armament, and he was never seen without it. His weakness was for
writing poetry, and he "threw" a poem on the slightest provocation.
Fortunately none of these has been preserved.

96

Each Brigadier-General soon raised in his Division several regiments and
battalions of infantry, troops of cavalry, and batteries of artillery,
composed of very excellent material, for the young men of the Middle
Class were persuaded that it was their duty to respond to the State's
call to defend her. The strongest political, social and local influences
were brought to bear to bring them into the ranks, and the Missouri
State Guard was formed, which was to fight valorously against the
Government on many bitterly contested fields.

The White Trash, always impatient of the restrains of law and
organization, did not enter so largely into these forces, but remained
outside, to form bands of bushwhackers and guerrillas, to harry
Union men and curse the State with their depredations, in which the
Secessionists were scarcely more favored than the Union men.

The influence of Gen. Scott and Attorney-General Bates, added to the
passionate representations of the Gamble-Yeatman delegation, and the
frantic telegrams from Missouri, had restor