Biographical Sketches

The Civil War in Georgia

Henry Rootes Jackson (24 JUN 1820 - 23 MAY 1898)

Brigadier-General Henry Rootes Jackson was born at Savannah, Ga., June 24, 1820. His father was Henry Jackson, youngest brother and adopted son of Gen. James Jackson, of revolutionary fame, and was one of the ablest professors at the State university, the presidency of which, being repeatedly tendered him, was as often declined. Henry R. Jackson was educated at Yale college and graduated there with high honors in 1839. He studied law and was admitted to the bar at Columbus, Ga., in 1840. He then settled at Savannah and began a remarkably successful career. In 1843 he was appointed United States district attorney. Upon the occurrence of the Mexican war he was elected colonel of the First Georgia regiment, which served in 1846-47. He was judge of the Superior court of Georgia from 1849 to 1853. In 1853 he was appointed United States minister to Austria. This position he resigned in 1858. The next year he declined the chancellorship of the State university, which had been offered to him. He was a delegate to the Charleston Democratic convention in 1860, where the great breach occurred that led to secession and to civil war, and was elector for the State-at-large on the Breckinridge and Lane ticket. He was appointed judge of the Confederate courts in Georgia in 1861, but resigned in the same year to accept the rank of brigadier-general in the army of the Confederate States, his commission bearing date of July 4, 1861. He reached the field of operations to which he had been assigned just about the time of the defeat and death of Gen. Robert S. Garnett in West Virginia; gathered together at Monterey the defeated and disorganized forces of Garnett, and in a short while had restored their organization and discipline and infused into them a spirit, not only of readiness, but of anxiety, to enter upon a new campaign for the recovery of what had been lost in Northern Virginia. When Lee made his advance upon Cheat mountain in September, Jackson's brigade was in a high state of efficiency. On October 3, 1861, the Federal forces from Cheat mountain made an attack upon Jackson's camp at Greenbrier river, but were repulsed after a short combat of about four hours. Toward the close of autumn General Jackson received a telegram from Governor Brown, of Georgia, asking him to accept the command of a division of State troops enlisted for six months. Contrary to the wishes of President Davis, he accepted this position and went to Georgia. The very first person to greet him, as he entered the Pulaski house at Savannah, was General Lee, at that time commanding the department of South Carolina and Georgia. Lee said: "I am happy to meet you here in any capacity, but I deeply regretted your resignation from the army. At the date of it I was negotiating for you with the department of war. I asked for but two men, and you were one of them." While in command of the State troops he at one time prevented an attack upon Savannah by the rapid concentration of his troops near that city. Upon the passage of the conscript act, the division was turned over to the Confederacy, leaving General Jackson without a command. At this time he offered to enlist as a private in the Irish Jasper Greens, in command of which company he had gone to the Mexican war. When Gen. W. H. T. Walker was reappointed to the army, General Jackson became a volunteer aide upon his staff. During the Atlanta campaign Governor Brown employed the services of General Jackson in organizing the State troops that were being assembled for the defense of Atlanta. On September 21, 1864, after the fall of Atlanta, when Hood was preparing for his match into Tennessee, Jackson was reappointed -brigadier-general in the Confederate army, and participated in the bloody battles of Jonesboro, Franklin and Nashville. In the last named his brigade repulsed and held at bay with great slaughter the enemy in its immediate front, while the Confederate line was being broken on each side of it, and fought until it was surrounded and captured. General Jackson was taken to Johnson's island, thence to Fort Warren, and was not released until the close of the war. After the return of peace he resumed the practice of law. He was always averse to office-seeking and to the personal rivalries of politics. From 1875 until his death he was president of the Georgia historical society, from 1885 to 1887 United States minister to Mexico, for years a trustee of the Peabody educational fund, and in 1892 a director of the Central railroad and banking company, of Georgia. His death occurred at Savannah, Ga., May 23, 1898. A Savannah correspondent in making the sad announcement said of him: "A connoisseur in art and letters, gloriously eloquent, of dauntless chivalry and immovable convictions, a man of affairs, and endowed with exalted home qualities, General Jackson was a type of the best Southern manhood."

Evans - Confederate Military History pg. 426-28.

John K. Jackson (8 FEB 1828 - 27 FEB 1866)

Brigadier-General John K. Jackson was born February 8, 1828, at Augusta, Ga. He was educated at the Richmond Academy and at the South Carolina College at Columbia, where he was graduated with honors in 1846. He then studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1848, and followed his profession, with the exception of the four years of the Confederate war, until his death. In 1849 he was married to Miss Virginia L. Hardwick, of Columbia county, by whom he had three sons, Thomas M., William E., and Hardwick. His fondness for military experience led him to join the Oglethorpe infantry upon its organization, becoming first lieutenant of the company, and at the death of Capt. Andrew J. Miller was elected captain. He served in this position until elected lieutenant-colonel of the battalion of the companies in the city of Augusta. Upon the call of the State for troops to enter the Confederate army, he was among the first to respond, and was elected colonel of the Fifth Georgia regiment, at Macon, at its organization in May, 1861. The regiment was ordered to Pensacola, Fla., and Colonel Jackson remained in command of the regiment and of the post of Pensacola until January, 1862. On October 8, 1861, he was in command of one of the three detachments which fought the battle of Santa Rosa Island. He was promoted to brigadier-general in January, 1862, and commanded a brigade at Pensacola until some time in February, when he was ordered to Grand Junction, Tenn., put in command of the post there, and charged with the organization of troops which were arriving and being sent forward in brigades to Corinth, Miss. This was the beginning of the organization of the army of Tennessee. In the battle of Shiloh, April 6 and 7, 1862, he commanded a brigade of infantry, composed in part of two Alabama regiments (Colonel Wheeler's and Colonel Shorter's), one Texas regiment (Colonel Moore's)and Girardey's Georgia battery from Augusta. He commanded a Brigade composed of the Fifth Georgia, Fifth and Eighth Mississippi, and Coxe's Sharpshooters, in General Bragg's army during the campaign in Kentucky in the autumn of 1862. Subsequently his brigade was ordered from Knoxville to Bridgeport, Ala., where it successfully guarded the railroad communications from Chattanooga to Murfreesboro, while the balance of the army moved forward to Murfreesboro. On Christmas day, 1863, he received orders from General Bragg to bring up to the front all of his brigade that he could spare from guarding the bridges, and promptly obeying, his brigade was posted first on the right as part of the reserve and afterward was ordered to report to General Polk, at Duck river, near the Cowan house. General Polk ordered him into the fight at Cowan's house, where Withers' division had been repulsed. As Breckinridge's command, composed of three brigades, was coming up in the rear, General Jackson asked if it would not be better to wait until Breckinridge was in line, as the enemy was very strong; but General Polk replied, "Jackson, there's the enemy, go in." He went in, accordingly, and his brigade was cut to pieces. After the battle he was ordered back to Bridgeport and from there to Chattanooga, where he had charge of the communications from Atlanta to Tullahoma. Jackson's brigade, composed of the Fifth and Forty-fourth Georgia, and the Fifth and Eighth Mississippi regiments, fought with distinction at Chickamauga in Cheatham's division. The Fifth Georgia lost sixty-one per cent in that battle, the second heaviest loss of all the regiments engaged. He commanded his brigade in the battle of Missionary Ridge, and his, with General Moore's brigade, was the first to check the enemy after the Confederate lines were broken. When the army fell back to Dalton he was transferred to General Walker's division, with which he participated in the Georgia campaign up to July 1, 1864. He was then ordered with the Fifth and Forty-fourth Georgia regiments to report to Maj.-Gen. Sam Jones at Charleston, S.C.; was ordered to relieve Gen. Patton Anderson, in command of the district of Florida, at Lake City; later reported to General Mercer at Savannah in General Hardee's division; and in the siege of Savannah he commanded the center of the line. After the evacuation of Savannah he was ordered to Branchville, S.C., to establish a depot of ordnance and other stores, intended to supply General McLaws' division along the Salkehatchie river and to assist General Hood's army as it came through; from Branchville he was ordered to Cheraw, from there to Goldsboro, and finally to Augusta, but before he reached the latter city General Lee surrendered. After the surrender, as soon as he was permitted by the Federal authorities, he resumed the practice of law. He was employed by several State banks to obtain from the Georgia legislature relief for their stockholders from personal liability for bank bills which had been issued; and while at Milledgeville on this mission he was taken sick with pneumonia, and died on the 27th of February, 1866.

William Allison Jeffcoat (14 APR 1834 - )

REF: EMAIL note from Laurie Fisher

The Civil War in Georgia

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