Jacob Thompson

For the English painter, see Jacob Thompson (painter).

Jacob Thompson
5th United States Secretary of the Interior
In office March 10, 1857 – January 8, 1861
President	James Buchanan
Preceded by	Robert McClelland
Succeeded by	Caleb B. Smith
Personal details
Born	(1810-05-15)May 15, 1810 Leasburg, North Carolina, U.S.
Died	March 24, 1885(1885-03-24) (aged 74) Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Catherine Ann Jones Thompson
Alma mater	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Profession	Politician, Lawyer, Teacher

Jacob Thompson (May 15, 1810 – March 24, 1885) was a lawyer and politician who served as United States Secretary of the Interior from 1857 to 1861.

Jacob Thompson

Biography

Born in Leasburg, North Carolina, in 1810, Thompson attended Bingham Academy in Orange County, North Carolina, and later went on to graduate from the University of North Carolina in 1831. Afterwards, he served on the university faculty for a short time until he left to study law in 1832. He was admitted to the bar in 1834 and commenced practice in Pontotoc, Mississippi.

Thompson got involved in politics and was elected to the 26th Congress, serving from 1839 to 1851. He was appointed to the United States Senate in 1845, but never received the commission and the seat went to Joseph W. Chalmers. Thompson was the chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs in the 29th Congress. He lost reelection to the 32nd Congress and went back to practicing law until 1857, when newly elected President James Buchanan appointed Thompson United States Secretary of the Interior.

In the later years of the Buchanan administration, the cabinet members argued with one another on issues of slavery and secession.

Thompson's Alignment with the Confederacy

Thompson sided with the Confederacy and resigned as Interior Secretary in January 1861. When he resigned, Horace Greeley's New-York Daily Tribune denounced him as "a traitor," remarking: "Undertaking to overthrow the Government of which you are a sworn minister may be in accordance with the ideas of cotton-growing chivalry, but to common men cannot be made to appear creditable."

Thompson became Inspector General of the Confederate States Army. Though not a military man, Thompson later joined the army as an officer and served as an aide to Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. He attained the rank of Lt. Colonel and was present at several other battles in the Western Theater of the war including Vicksburg, Corinth and Tupelo.

Commissioner in Canada

In March 1864, Jefferson Davis asked Thompson to lead a secret delegation in Canada. He accepted and arrived in Montreal in May of that year. Thompson appears to have been the leader of Confederate Secret Service operations in Canada.

From there he directed a failed plot to free Confederate prisoners of war on Johnson's Island, off Sandusky, Ohio, in September. He also arranged purchase of a steamer with the intention of arming it to harass shipping in the Great Lakes. Regarded in the North as a schemer and conspirator, many devious plots were associated with his name, though much of this may have been public hysteria.

On June 13, 1864, Thompson met with former New York governor Washington Hunt at Niagara Falls. According to the testimony of Peace Democrat Clement Vallandigham, he met Thompson and talked to him about creating a Northwestern Confederacy and obtained money for arms, which was routed to a subordinate. Thompson gave Ben Woods, the owner of the New York Daily News, money to purchase arms.

One plot was a planned burning of New York on November 25, 1864 in retaliation for Union Generals Philip Sheridan and William Tecumseh Sherman's scorched earth tactics in the south. As head of the Confederate secret agent network in Canada some speculate that John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, met with Thompson but this has not been proven (Thompson worked hard to clear his name of involvement in the assassination in the years after the war). His manor called "Home Place" in Oxford, Mississippi, was burned down by Union troops in 1864.

After the Civil War, Thompson fled to England and later returned to Canada as he waited for passions to cool in the United States. He eventually came home and settled in Memphis, Tennessee to manage his extensive holdings. Thompson was later appointed to the board of the University of the South at Sewanee and was a great benefactor of the school. He died in Memphis and was interred in Elmwood Cemetery.

William Faulkner, who was also a resident of Oxford, loosely based several ancestral members of the Compson family, featured in The Sound and the Fury on Thompson^{[citation needed]}.

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)

External links

• Jacob Thompson at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress Retrieved on 2009-5-12
• The Jacob Thompson Collection (MUM00266) can be found in the William and Marjorie Lewis Collection at the University of Mississippi in the Archives and Special Collections.
• "Jacob Thompson". Find a Grave. Retrieved May 12, 2009. 

References

United States House of Representatives
Preceded by Thomas J. Word Seargent S. Prentiss	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Mississippi's at-large congressional district March 4, 1839 – March 3, 1847 Served alongside: Albert G. Brown, William M. Gwin, William H. Hammett, Robert W. Roberts, Tilghman M. Tucker, Stephen Adams, Jefferson Davis and Henry T. Ellett	Succeeded by (none)
Preceded by (none)	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Mississippi's 1st congressional district March 4, 1847 – March 3, 1851	Succeeded by Benjamin D. Nabers
Political offices
Preceded by Robert McClelland	U.S. Secretary of the Interior Served under: James Buchanan March 10, 1857 – January 8, 1861	Succeeded by Caleb B. Smith