The able and witty Alexander W. Doniphan--"Xenophon" Doniphan of Mexican fame--who had made the astonishing march upon New Mexico and Chihuahua, was appointed to command one of the Divisions, but he was too much of a Union man, and declined. It was significant from the first that all the officers commissioned were more or less open Secessionists, and commissions were refused to some who sought them because they would not swear to 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 restored Harney to full power, with Lyon, who had been commissioned a Brigadier-General of Volunteers, as his subordinate.