Henry R. Jackson

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Henry Rootes Jackson

Henry Rootes Jackson (June 24, 1820 – May 23, 1898) was a major general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

Jackson was born in Athens, Georgia. He graduated with honors from Yale University, where he was a member of Skull & Bones, in 1839. Before the war, he served as a lawyer, then as an officer in the Mexican-American War, state judge, and as United States ambassador to Austria from 1854 to 1858.

Enlisting in the Confederate army in 1861, he served as a judge in Confederate courts. Promoted in June to brigadier general, he later led troops during the Western Virginia campaign, seeing action at the Battle of Cheat Mountain. In December, he was promoted to major general of state militia for Georgia. Returning to Confederate service in September 1863, he led a brigade during the Atlanta Campaign. He commanded a brigade in William B. Bate's division in John Bell Hood's Franklin-Nashville Campaign. Jackson was captured at the Battle of Nashville and was paroled from Fort Warren, Massachusetts, on July 8, 1865.

After the war, he resumed his law practice and political career, being named as minister to Mexico from 1885 to 1886. He also was a railroad executive, banker, and president of the Georgia Historical Society (1875 – 1898). Jackson died in Savannah, Georgia, and was buried in Bonaventure Cemetery in that city.

[edit] References

Eicher, John H., & Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
Warner, Ezra J., Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders, Louisiana State University Press, 1959, ISBN 0-8071-0823-5.