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The "Swamp Rats" in Mississippi.

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:187.00 USD Estimated At:375.00 - 450.00 USD
The  Swamp Rats  in Mississippi.
Confederate telegram, in field hand, from fearsome (Brig. Gen.) M. Jeff Thompson, on partly printed form of South-Western Telegraph Co., Senatobia (Miss.), June 21, 1862, 5 1/2 x 8 1/4. To Gen. Ruggles, probably at Grenada. That month, Ruggles was named commander of Louisiana east of the Mississippi, headquartered in Jackson. "The enemy have undoubtedly gone back over Cold Water but as I have but thirty men I will go to Panola to stay tonight and return as far as possible in the morning. Telegraph to me at Panola." Grenada, Miss. was on a key rail line; the previous day, Thompson had warned of an audacious attack by Union Gen. Lew Wallace (of Ben Hur fame). Docketed "R(eceived) 7 P.M." A Confederate partisan fighter, Thompson was a "colorful Virginian with Yankee mechanical ingenuity and a love of deadly weapons" (Monaghan). His "swamp rats" became part of the lexicon of the Civil War. Around the time this telegram was sent, Thompson was charged with mustering Mississippi's new Partisan Rangers, at Senatobia. Still in Senatobia three weeks later, Thompson wrote a letter (not present) to U.S. Grant: "...While to 'threaten' (is) unsoldierly...I would tell you to beware of the curses and oaths of vengeance, which the Fifty Thousand brave Tennesseans, who are still in our Army, will register in Heaven, against the persecutor of helpless old men, women, and children, and the General who cannot guard his own lines..."--The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Vol. 5, p. 193. Symmetrical waterstain along central fold and at lower portions, else very good.