{"id":15524,"date":"2014-08-25T17:52:54","date_gmt":"2014-08-25T22:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=15524"},"modified":"2024-04-11T01:33:43","modified_gmt":"2024-04-11T06:33:43","slug":"jacob-thompson-one-of-oxford-mississippis-and-the-souths-most-wanted-confederates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/jacob-thompson-one-of-oxford-mississippis-and-the-souths-most-wanted-confederates\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacob Thompson: One of Oxford, Mississippi’s, and the South’s Most Wanted Confederates"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Oxford,<\/a>
Oxford, Mississippi politician Jacob Thompson became head of the Confederate Secret Service at the request of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Thompson\u2019s house was on Old Taylor Road, across from Rowan Oak.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the first homes in Oxford, Mississippi<\/strong> to be burned by the Union Army<\/strong>\u00a0on August 22, 1864<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0was the estate belonging to\u00a0Jacob Thompson<\/strong>. The Thompson place stood across the street from\u00a0Rowan Oak<\/strong>\u00a0on\u00a0Old Taylor Road<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jacob Thompson was an important\u00a0official before the\u00a0Civil War<\/strong>. He was elected to represent\u00a0Mississippi<\/strong>\u00a0in both\u00a0House\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Senate<\/strong>, and he was President\u00a0James Buchanan<\/strong>\u2019s\u00a0Secretary of the Interior<\/strong>\u00a0from 1857 until Mississippi seceded on January 9, 1861.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"President<\/a>
President Buchanan and his Cabinet From left to right: Jacob Thompson, Lewis Cass, John B. Floyd, James Buchanan, Howell Cobb, Isaac Toucey, Joseph Holt and Jeremiah S. Black, (c. 1859)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jacob Thompson\u00a0resigned and went back to his home in\u00a0Oxford, where he helped raise\u00a0Confederate<\/strong>\u00a0regiments.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He served in regional battles and engagements the first two years of the Civil War, including the\u00a0Battle of Shiloh<\/strong>\u00a0and the first Union invasion of Oxford<\/strong> in December 1862.<\/span><\/p>\n

In March of 1864, Confederate President\u00a0Jefferson Davis<\/strong>\u00a0asked him\u00a0to travel to Canada to help promote the Southern cause.\u00a0\"jacobthompson2\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Jacob<\/a>
Jacob Thompson’s grave in Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis, Tennessee. Photograph by Newt Rayburn.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jacob Thompson took a suitcase full of gold and camped out in a hotel in Montreal<\/strong>, where he enlisted the help of renegade bands of Northerners and Canadians<\/strong> to conduct clandestine actions and raids in\u00a0New York<\/strong>,\u00a0Illinois<\/strong>, and the\u00a0Great Lakes<\/strong>\u00a0area.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thompson was very successful in harassing the Union army from Canada and he quickly became one of the most wanted Confederates. He was even believed to have ties to\u00a0John Wilkes Booth<\/strong>, the man who assassinated\u00a0President Abraham Lincoln<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jacob\u00a0eventually fled to Europe to escape arrest, and lived there after the war. Although he\u00a0was formerly charged in 1865 in the conspiracy to assassinate the President, he was eventually exonerated.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thompson lived in Europe<\/strong> until 1868 when he returned to the South and settled in Memphis, Tennessee<\/strong>. He is buried in Elmwood Cemetery<\/strong>, just south of downtown Memphis.\u00a0\"The<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Related:\u00a0150 Years Ago, August 22, 1864: The Burning of Oxford, Mississippi<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Jacob<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the first homes in Oxford, Mississippi to be burned by the Union Army\u00a0on August 22, 1864,\u00a0was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[309],"tags":[2939,1072,4120,1385,4110,7085,1062,4119,927,4112,4117,1113,4023,4115,4055,4118,468,5,4109,4111,15,4114,4,2644,4108,4116,3618,4107,2676,4113],"class_list":["post-15524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-civil-war","tag-2939","tag-abraham-lincoln","tag-august-22","tag-battle-of-shiloh","tag-canada","tag-civil-war","tag-confederate","tag-elmwood-cemetery","tag-europe","tag-great-lakes","tag-house-of-representatives","tag-illinois","tag-jacob-thompson","tag-james-buchanan","tag-jefferson-davis","tag-john-wilkes-booth","tag-memphis","tag-mississippi","tag-montreal","tag-new-york","tag-newt-rayburn","tag-old-taylor-road","tag-oxford","tag-rowan-oak","tag-secret-service","tag-secretary-of-the-interior","tag-senate","tag-spy","tag-tennessee","tag-union-army"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/2014-08-25-JacobThompson2.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15524"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138354,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15524\/revisions\/138354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}