Parentage and Early Years
The family from which General Jackson came was founded in Western Virginia by John Jackson, an emigrant from London. His stock was Scotch-Irish, and it is most probable that John Jackson himself was brought from the north of Ireland to London in his second year. Nearly fifty years after he left England, his son, Colonel George Jackson, while a member of Congress, formed a friendship with the celebrated Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, afterwards the victor of New Orleans and President. The two traced their ancestry to the same parish near Londonderry. No closer family relationship could be established between the two lines, but such a tie is made probable by their marked resemblance in energy and courage, illustrated not only in the careers of the two great commanders who made the name immortal, but in other members of their families as well.
John Jackson was brought up in London and became a reputable and prosperous tradesman. He determined to transfer his rising fortunes to the British colonies in America, and crossed the seas in 1748, landing first in the plantations of Lord Baltimore. In Calvert County, Maryland, he married Elizabeth Cummins, a young woman also from London, of excellent character and respectable education. The young couple, following the common fashion of American emigrants, proceeded at once to seek new and cheaper lands on which to establish their household. They made their first home on the south branch of the Potomac River, at the place now known as Moorefields, the county seat of Hardy County.
After residing for a time in that lovely valley, John Jackson crossed the main Alleghany ridge into Northwestern Virginia with his young family, drawn by yet wider lands that appealed to his enterprising spirit. He fixed his home on the Buchanan River, in what was first Randolph County but is now Upshur County, at a place long known as Jackson's Fort and now occupied by the little village of Buchanan. Here he spent his active life and reared his family.
He is said to have been a spare, diminutive man, of plain mind, quiet but determined character, sound judgment, and excellent morals. His wife was a woman of masculine stature, and her understanding and energy matched the vigor of her physical frame. When the young couple emigrated to the Northwest, the Indians were still contesting the occupancy of its teeming valleys with the white settlers. The colonists were compelled to build stockade-forts for their security, retreating into them with their families and cattle at every alarm of an Indian raid. Tradition holds that in more than one of these sieges, Elizabeth Cummins proved herself, though a woman, to have "the stomach and mettle of a man," and rendered valuable service by aiding and encouraging the defenders.
In her industry and enterprise was realized King Lemuel's description of the virtuous woman: "She considereth a field, and buyeth it; with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard." Several patents are still in existence conveying land to her in her own name, lands that afterwards became valuable possessions of her descendants. Her family has generally held that the characteristics of their race were largely inherited from her, that it was her sterling integrity, vigorous intellect, and directness of purpose that shaped their type.
The picturesque country that became the Jacksons' home descends gradually from the watershed of the Appalachian range to the Ohio River, but is filled with ridges running parallel to the main crest. The nearest of these are also lofty mountains, while those farther west subside into bold and fertile hills. The grander heights were covered with magnificent forests of spruce and fir, intermingled with tangled thickets of laurel. As the traveler approached the Ohio and the mountains sank into swelling highlands, he found the ridges fertile almost beyond belief: the slopes clothed to their tops with giant groves of oak and chestnut, poplar, linden, beech, and sugar maple; the hills separated by placid streams flowing through smooth valleys and meadows; and their sides everywhere filled with beds of the richest coal. The waters refreshing this goodly land flow northward and compose the Monongahela, which joins its streams at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with those of the Alleghany to form the Ohio. The combined currents then turn southward and form the western border of Northern Virginia, separating it from Ohio.
As highlands generally decline in elevation as their watercourses enlarge, the northern part of this district, lying within Pennsylvania, is less rugged than the southern. Settlements therefore naturally moved from the smoother regions of Western Pennsylvania into the hills of Northwestern Virginia, so that in the latter district the northern counties were at first the more cultivated, while the southern bore to them the relation of frontiers. The emigrants found that they had not descended very far from the loftier ranges of the Alleghany and Cheat mountains before the Alpine rigors of the climate gave way. Wherever the valleys were cleared of their woods, they clothed themselves with the richest grass and teemed with corn, wheat, the vine, the peach, and all the products of Eastern Virginia. Yet this fertile region could only be reached from the east by a few rough roads, nearly impassable for carriages, that wound among and over the ridges of a wide labyrinth of mountains.
The patriarch of the Jacksons removed here before the American Revolution. In that struggle, he and his elder sons served as soldiers, and at its close they returned to their rural pursuits. With the practical sagacity for which the Scotch-Irish emigrant is always noted, he and his wife bent their energies to securing fortunes for their children by acquiring the most valuable lands of the country while they were unoccupied and cheap. In this they succeeded, and their numerous children were all endowed with farms that now make their holders wealthy. After a long and active life, the old couple removed to the house of Colonel George Jackson, their eldest son, at Clarksburg, the county seat of Harrison County, now a notable town on the southern branch of the great Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, about forty miles from the Pennsylvania border.
The death of the old man in this quiet retreat is recorded by one of the most distinguished of his descendants, John G. Jackson of Clarksburg, Judge of the United States Court for the Western District of Virginia. He writes to Mrs. Madison, whose sister he had married, in 1801:
> "Death, on the 25th of September, put a period to the existence of my aged grandfather, John Jackson, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. The long life of this good man was spent in those noble and virtuous pursuits which endear men to their acquaintance, and make their decease sincerely regretted by all the good and virtuous. > "He was a native of England, and migrated hither in the year 1748. He took an active part in the revolutionary war in favor of Independence, and, upon the establishment of it, returned to his farming, which he laboriously pursued until the marriage of his younger son, when he was prevailed upon by my father to come and reside near him; there he lived for several years with his wife, enjoying all his mental faculties, and great corporeal strength, until a few days before his death. I saw him breathe his last in the arms of my aged grandmother, and can truly add, that to live and die as he did would be the excess of happiness. > "He left a valuable real-estate at the entire disposal of the widow, with the concurrence of all the natural heirs, as his liberality had been amply experienced by them all in his lifetime."
Elizabeth, his wife, survived him until 1825, beloved and respected by all who knew her, and reached the extreme age of one hundred and five years. She possessed stamina, both physical and moral, fitting her to rear a race that were men indeed. The reader may pause a moment to note the names and characters of her children, so that the springs of General Jackson's nature may be better illustrated, and also so that his widely scattered kindred may be able to trace their relationship to this world-famous man.
The eldest son was George Jackson, who lived at Clarksburg, the seat of justice for Harrison County, and was a prominent and influential figure in the settlement of Northwestern Virginia. Having served with his father in the Revolutionary War, he became a colonel in the forces that, at the close of that struggle, expelled the Indians finally from his district. He was one of the first delegates from Harrison County in the General Assembly of Virginia, a member for that county in the State Convention by which Virginia accepted the Federal Constitution, and the first delegate from his district to the first Congress of the United States that sat under it. After his father's death, he removed to Zanesville, Ohio, where his life ended.
The second son was Edward, the grandfather of General Jackson, who, after several removals, fixed his home on the west fork of the Monongahela, four miles north of Weston, the present chief town of Lewis County. He was a man of spare and athletic frame, energetic character, and good understanding, beloved and respected by his acquaintances. Serving for a long time as surveyor for the great county of Randolph, he acquired much valuable land and left to each of his fifteen children a respectable inheritance. He, together with his father and elder brother, was actively engaged in the Revolutionary and Indian wars.
The third son was Samuel Jackson, who emigrated to Indiana and left a numerous family near the town of Terre Haute. The fourth and fifth sons, John and Henry, lived near the place of their birth on the Buchanan River, though several of their many children found their way to the extreme West. Each of these five sons of John Jackson was twice married and left a numerous progeny. There were also three daughters, who married residents of the country and left descendants bearing the names of Davis, Brake, and Regar.
Talent and capacity were not limited to this second generation. The sons of George Jackson deserve particular notice among the men of the third generation. The eldest was John G. Jackson, a lawyer of great distinction at Clarksburg. He succeeded his father in Congress and married first Miss Payne, the sister of the accomplished lady who married Mr. Madison, President of the United States, and then the only daughter of Mr. Meigs, Governor of Ohio and afterwards Postmaster-General. He was appointed the first Federal Judge for the district of West Virginia, an office he filled with distinction until his death around the year 1825. He was a learned lawyer, a man of great energy and enterprise, who sought to develop the resources of his country by building iron furnaces and forges, mills, woolen factories, and salt-works. These endeavors absorbed large sums of money and left his considerable estate heavily encumbered at his death.
The other sons of this family were Edward, a respectable physician; William L. a lawyer and father of a relative and contemporary of General Jackson, Colonel William L. Jackson, who served as Lieutenant-Governor of the State and then as Judge of the Superior Court; and George Washington, long a citizen of Ohio, now an honorable exile on account of political persecution for his fidelity to his native land. It was his son, Colonel Alfred Jackson, who after serving on the staff of the General received a mortal wound in the battle of Cedar Run, and now lies near him in the graveyard of Lexington.
The character which the founders impressed upon their house will now be understood. Through their foresight and virtues, it became the most noted, wealthy, and influential family in their region. They typically held the best lands and the most numerous slaves, occupied the posts of influence and power in the gift of their fellow citizens, and sent some member of their family to the General Assembly of their State or to Congress in Washington. They were marked by strong and distinctive features, close family attachments, determination and industry in their undertakings, and a restless love of adventure. Their race is now scattered from Virginia to Oregon. More than one of them was led by his love of roving into the most secluded recesses of the Rocky Mountains as an explorer and hunter.
All of them were energetic and skilled at acquiring wealth, though not all were able to keep it. Many of the second and third generations were known for a passion for litigation, driven not so much by greed as by a love of intellectual excitement and a temper intolerant of what they perceived as injustice. And nearly the whole race was utterly incapable of resisting the fascination of machinery. Every Jackson owned a mill or factory of some sort, many of them more than one, where they delighted to exercise the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the self-taught mechanic. In a country of sparse population, more devoted to raising cattle than to growing grain, it is easy to see how these enterprises gave their owners more pleasure than profit.
Colonel Edward Jackson, the grandfather of General Jackson, was, as already noted, the second son of his parents. His second marriage brought him nine sons and daughters. His first wife, born a Hadden, bore three sons, George, David, and Jonathan, and three daughters, of whom one married a gentleman named White and two married respectable farmers of German extraction named Brake.
Jonathan Jackson, the father of the subject of this work, adopted the profession of law. He pursued his preparatory studies within the family and under the guidance of his distinguished cousin, Judge Jackson of Clarksburg. That connection drew him to Clarksburg, the last seat of his forefather's residence, to pursue his career. About the same time he married Julia Neale, the daughter of an intelligent merchant in the village of Parkersburg, in Wood County, on the Ohio River. This marriage produced four children: the eldest was named Warren, the second Elizabeth, the third Thomas Jonathan, and the fourth Laura. Thomas was born in Clarksburg on January 21, 1824. The early death of his parents and the dispersion of the little family obscured the exact record of the date, so that General Jackson himself was unable to fix it with certainty. Of these children, none now survive save the youngest, who lives as a worthy matron in Randolph County.
Jonathan Jackson, the General's father, is said to have been, unusually for his race, a man of short stature. His face was ruddy, pleasing, and intelligent; his temper genial and affectionate, capable of the warmest and most generous attachments. He was a man of strong, clear understanding and held a respectable rank as a lawyer. He displayed little of the popular eloquence of the advocate, but his knowledge and judgment made him a valued counselor, and his chief distinction was as a Chancery lawyer. His inheritance was adequate to all reasonable wants, and the lands he received from his father are now so valuable as to confer independence on their present owners. But a temperament too social and yielding drew him into some of the prevalent dissipations of the country. Incautious dealings burdened him with the debts of his friends, and high play helped consume his estate. He at length became dependent entirely on his professional labors, which yielded his family only a moderate support, while he owned no real estate but the house in which he lived.
Not long after the birth of his fourth child, when Thomas was three years old, his daughter Elizabeth was seized with a malignant fever. He attended her sick-bed with tender assiduity until her death. His grief at the bereavement, combined perhaps with his business troubles, broke his strength; and within a fortnight he followed his daughter, sinking by the same disease into a premature grave. This unexpected end was all that was needed to complete the ruin of his affairs. Out of the wreck, absolutely nothing seems to have been saved for his widow and children. The Masonic Order, of which Jonathan Jackson had been an officer, gave the widow a small cottage of a single room. In that dwelling she set herself to earning a living for herself and her children, by her needle and the work of a little school.
She is described as a lady of graceful and commanding presence, spare and above the ordinary height of women, with a comely and engaging face. Her mind was cultivated and intelligent, and it is probable that much of her children's talent was inherited through her. Her constitution had pulmonary tendencies, which were evidently passed on to her distinguished son. Her mind was sprightly and her temperament mercurial, at one moment rising to gaiety under the stimulus of social enjoyment, and at another sinking to despondency under the weight of her troubles. But her character was crowned with unaffected piety. Her parentage and education would have inclined her toward the Presbyterian persuasion, but difficulty in reaching their ministrations led her to become a member of the Wesleyan or Methodist communion. General Jackson always spoke of her with tender affection and traced his first sacred impressions to her lessons. When a daughter was born to him a few months before his own death, he had her baptized with his mother's name, Julia Neale.
In the year 1830, Mrs. Jackson, whose youth and beauty still fitted her to attract, married Mr. Woodson, a lawyer of Cumberland County, Virginia, whom the rising importance of the Northwest had drawn, along with many other Eastern Virginians, to that region. He was something of a decayed gentleman, much older than Mrs. Jackson, a widower without property but of fair character and a sociable, easy manner. The marriage was distasteful to Mrs. Jackson's relatives. They threatened, as a kind of penalty, to take the maintenance and education of the children out of the widow's hands, and offered liberal financial assistance as an inducement if she would continue to bear her first husband's name. But love, as usual, prevailed.
Upon her marriage to Mr. Woodson, his limited means compelled her to accept for her children the protection of her former husband's kindred, which she had at first declined as an imposition. Her second husband's professional success was modest, and he very soon accepted, from his friend Judge Duncan, who had also married into the Jackson family, the office of Clerk of the Court in the county of Fayette, which lies on the New River, west of Greenbrier.
After one year of married life, Mrs. Woodson's constitution gave way in childbirth; two months later, she died on December 4, 1831. Her remains await their resurrection not far from the famous Hawk's Nest of New River. Her husband announced her death to her friends in these words: "No Christian on earth, no matter what evidence he might have had of a happy hereafter, could have died with more fortitude. Perfectly in her senses, calm and deliberate, she met her fate without a murmur or a struggle. Death for her had no sting; the grave could claim no victory. I have known few women of equal, none of superior merit."
The infant thus early bereaved of her care lived to manhood and died of pulmonary disease, doubtless inherited from his mother, in the State of Missouri. Thomas, then seven years old, had been sent for along with his brother and sister to visit his mother in her sickness, and he remained to witness her death. He stated to his Christian friends long afterward that the wholesome impression of her dying instructions and prayers, and of her triumph over the grave, had never been erased from his heart. In his manhood he delighted to think of her as the very image of sweetness, grace, and beauty.
He could never relate, without tenderness, the moment of his departure from his uncle's house, when she had him mounted behind the last of his father's slaves, "good old Uncle Robinson," and called him back so anxiously to give the last touch to the arrangements for his comfort. She had no other legacy to leave him than her prayers; but these availed to shield him through all the trials of his orphanhood and his eventful life. They were answered by the most glorious endowments of grace and virtue that the heart of a dying parent could crave for a child, a cheering instance of God's faithfulness to his people and their seed.
The orphans found shelter first with their father's sisters, Mrs. White, for whom Thomas always cherished a tender gratitude, and Mrs. Brake. His home was with the latter, about four miles from Clarksburg. He was then a pretty and engaging child, with rosy and almost feminine cheeks, waving brown hair, and large pensive blue eyes. Those who knew him said that in the waywardness and levity usually seen at his age, he was never truly a child. The little fellow possessed a manly, innate courtesy and a strange, quiet thoughtfulness, joined with a determination beyond his years, which drew wonder and love from his relatives.
An incident fully authenticated, occurring when he was just eight years old, shows that nature had made him from the first of another mold than common men. He appeared one day at the house of his father's cousin, Judge John G. Jackson, in Clarksburg, and addressing Mrs. Jackson as "aunt," as he usually did, asked her for dinner. While eating he remarked, in a very quiet tone, "Uncle Brake and I don't agree; I have quit him, and shall not go back any more." His kind hostess remonstrated against this as a childish whim. He listened most respectfully to all her reasoning, but returned to the same resolute declaration: "No; Uncle Brake and I can't agree; I have quit, and shall not go back any more."
It seems the husband of his aunt, though an honest man, was an exacting one, and had made the mistake of trying to govern the orphan through force rather than through his understanding and conscience. The singular child, having concluded that his stay under that authority would never be congenial, had calmly determined, with the same inexorable will he displayed in later years, to end the connection at once. From Judge Jackson's he went to a favorite cousin's, lately married and living in her own house, and asked leave to spend the night. In the course of the evening he announced his intention of leaving his home, and after listening respectfully to her remonstrances as well, returned resolutely to his old declaration: "No; Uncle Brake and I don't agree; I have quit there; I shall not go back any more."
Accordingly, the next morning he set out from Clarksburg alone and traveled on foot to his grandfather's former home in Lewis County, about eighteen miles distant, then belonging to Cummins Jackson, his father's half-brother. There he was kindly received, and in the affectionate protection of his uncle and of two maiden aunts, afterward Mrs. Carpenter and Mrs. Hall, then residing with him, he found the home he wanted. It was the more attractive because his elder brother, Warren, was now sharing the same refuge.
This remarkable man deserves our notice, not only for his paternal kindness to the orphan, but for the influence he exerted, and for that which, contrary to all human calculation, he failed to exert upon him. He was then approaching middle life, a bachelor of lofty stature and most athletic frame, full of all the rugged energy of his race. The native powers of his mind, though not cultivated by a liberal education, were so strong that some acquaintances declared him to be, in their opinion, the ablest man they had ever known. His will was as strong as his understanding, and his passions were vehement and enduring. As a friend he was steadfast and generous without limit; and though slow to take offense, as an enemy he was equally bitter and unforgiving. His liberality was such that his poorer neighbors and dependants adored him.
He never had political ambitions for himself, but his unbounded influence generally directed the honors of his country to whichever person he favored. Yet his business ethics, except when bound by his own voluntary promises, which he always scrupulously kept, were counted unscrupulous; and he was so passionately fond of litigation that his legal controversies consumed a large part of the income of a liberal estate and the earnings of his own prodigious industry. He owned a valuable farm and mills, and was one of the largest slaveholders in Lewis County. His occupations were agriculture and the preparation of lumber and flour, varied by the hardy sports of a forest country.
In this plain but plentiful home, Thomas lived until he became a cadet at West Point, with one notable interval to be related presently. He received all the privileges of a son of the family. The relationship between him and his uncle was, from the first, remarkable. His uncle treated the little boy more as a companion than as a child, setting aside the roughness of his own nature when with him, sharing his plans and thoughts as though with an equal and counselor, making him his delighted pupil in all the rural arts in which he was himself an unrivaled master, and always requesting rather than demanding his compliance with household discipline. The child was thus drawn into the work of self-government from a very early age, and granted an independence of action more suited to a man. But he did not disappoint his uncle's confidence.
This unusual approach to the boy may be explained in part by the singular temperament of the family, passionately attached to the idea of independence; in part by the relaxation of parental restraints common in new countries; and in part by the profound sagacity of the guardian, who saw at a glance the noble nature with which he had to deal. He showed his affection also by earnestly seeking for Thomas, as well as for his elder brother, the best education within his reach. He required them to attend the neighborhood school regularly, which Thomas was prompt to do; but Warren chafed under its restraints.
Warren was now a hardy lad of fourteen, and, Jackson-like, had begun to feel his own self-reliance and to find the bread of dependence irksome. His discontent was probably deepened by the sense that his younger brother was more the favorite. He therefore demanded to be allowed to seek his own fortune and choose his own home. His uncle, characteristically, gave him leave to please himself; and after a few months he departed. But he also persuaded Thomas, partly through affection and partly through the authority of a senior, to go with him.
They went first to the house of Mr. Neale, a maternal uncle, a most respectable man living on the Ohio River at that island made famous by the name and misfortunes of Blennerhasset and the eloquence of Mr. Wirt. This relative also received them with cordial kindness. But Warren found that his affection dictated the same policy that Cummins Jackson's had prompted, requiring them to pursue their studies diligently at school. He soon wearied of the restraint again, and the following spring he took his little brother down the Ohio River, disappearing from the knowledge of their friends for a time.
In the fall they returned, by the charity of some steamboat captain, travel-soiled, ragged, and wasted by the ague. Their story was that they had floated down to the junction of the Ohio with the Mississippi, seeking adventures and a livelihood, until at length they contracted to cut firewood for the furnaces of the steamers on one of the lonely islands of the Mississippi near the southwestern corner of Kentucky. There the two children had spent the summer alone, living in a temporary cabin, earning their bread by this rough labor amid the dreary cottonwood forests, encircled by the turbid river, until their suffering from the ague compelled them to find their way home. What a strange world for the fair and pensive child of nine summers! Yet such was the sturdiness of his nature that he seemed scarcely to feel either its incongruity or its hardship.
On their return to their native region, Thomas declared that he would go back permanently to the protection of his uncle Cummins Jackson, because he had experienced his kindness and loved his home. Warren seemed still to feel some repugnance, and preferred to seek refuge with one of his father's sisters living near the old family home on Buchanan River, Mrs. Isaac Brake. There he was kindly received. The comforts of Thomas's home soon repaired the ravages of the ague in his body; but in Warren the disease had taken so fatal a hold that it could not be shaken off. It passed into pulmonary decline, and after a few years of lingering sickness, which seemed to be sanctified to the production of thorough gentleness and piety, it carried him to his grave in his nineteenth year.
None of the little family now remained save Thomas, sheltered under the strong but kindly protection of his uncle, and the girl Laura, who received her nurture from her mother's relatives in Wood County. Although they never again shared the same home and could not meet very often, he always cherished the warmest affection for this sister. The first pocket-money he ever earned for himself he spent entirely in buying her a silk dress.
It has been noted that Thomas always received from Cummins Jackson the generous treatment due a son. His opportunities for education were therefore just what they would have been had he been the heir of such a citizen. Classical academies were unknown in the country, and the sons of the most respectable families, apart from a few sent eastward for schooling, were content with the plain studies of a country school. But the practical success of many sons of the soil, General Jackson among them, has shown that book-learning is by no means the only instrument of an effective education.
He seems to have been eager for self-improvement at all times. A worthy man, Mr. Robert P. Ray, then taught an English school at Cummins Jackson's mills, where Thomas, together with the sons of the surrounding landholders, received the usual plain country education. Out of that school came several men who rose to be not only respectable citizens but legislators and professional men of influence. Thomas showed no particular quickness in any of his studies except arithmetic; in that subject he always outstripped his schoolmates, apparently without effort. In every other branch his gains came only by patient labor.
When he said he was prepared for a recitation, everyone could be certain he was thoroughly prepared. From the first, the intense honesty of his nature and the sober judgment with which he preferred the substance of an achievement over its appearance were remarkable. Nothing could induce him to leave a lesson behind him unmastered. If he had not finished a previous lesson when his classmates moved on, he would continue to study it while they proceeded to the next, and when called on for his share of the following recitation, he would flatly declare that he knew nothing about it, that he had not yet had time to begin it, and that all his time had been occupied with the other. He was therefore, not infrequently, nominally behind his class; but whatever he once gained was his forever, and his knowledge, though limited, was perfect as far as it went.
His temperament at this time was cheerful, amiable, and generous, and his bearing instinctively courteous. His truthfulness was at all times proverbial. To an intimate friend he once said that, as far as he could remember, he had never violated the exact truth in his life but once. That single instance was one many would justify and most would excuse; but he himself condemned it.
While serving as a lieutenant of artillery in the Mexican War, his company was ordered to proceed by a narrow path through a dense thicket of "chapparal," believed to be infested with guerrillas. Jackson himself saw the leaves of the shrubs riddled with fresh bullet-holes, and the men were so unnerved by dread of the unseen enemy that when the head of the column approached the dangerous spot it recoiled and, despite the expostulations of the officers, refused to advance. At length the young lieutenant went alone, far ahead of his men, and waving his sword shouted to them: "You see there is no danger; forward!" Yet, as he confessed, he knew at that moment he was in extreme peril.
At school he was also noted for a strong sense of justice, which made him as respectful of the rights of others as he was tenacious of his own. As long as his playmates treated him fairly, his temper was perfectly gentle and accommodating; but if he believed himself wronged, his resistance was inexorable. In his occasional fights with his fellows, superior strength might sometimes overpower him, but it could never force him to acknowledge defeat. The victor might strike him until he stopped from sheer weariness, but Thomas remained unsubdued and ready to renew the fight whenever his antagonist dared to assail him. He was withal never sullen or morose, but always ready for the merry game or romp. He was not particularly swift of foot, but he generally led his playmates in jumping and climbing. When the school was divided into two sides for a game of bat and ball or prisoners'-base, he was always captain of one, and his side was sure to win.
Throughout western Virginia, landowners and their sons were more accustomed to working their own farms with their own hands than almost any population of equal wealth and comfort in America. This followed partly from the industrious habits that the Presbyterian Scots and Irish, who were the dominant class in those regions, brought from their native lands; partly from the comparative scarcity of labor, both slave and hired; and partly from the lack of the abundant literary and professional opportunities that a more established society offers to the wealthy. Even in the households of slaveholders like Cummins Jackson, who were few in that country, the men, when not at school, were regularly occupied in farm work, except during the generous time set aside for country sports.
The reader will understand, then, that Thomas, though in no sense reduced by his orphanhood to a condition below that of the young men around him, was occupied like his uncle in the work of the farm and mills. In this he was always resolute and efficient. One of his most frequent tasks seems to have been hauling the great trunks of poplars and oaks out of the woods to be cut into lumber at the sawmill. He became a noted driver of oxen. If a tree needed to be moved from unusually difficult ground, or if it was more enormous than the rest, the party of workers was placed under his command, and the work was sure to get done. In this way his life passed from age nine to sixteen, divided between the labors of school and farm.
He was then, like his father, of short stature, but compact and muscular, capable of great fatigue and indomitable physical endurance. His manner was unassuming but manly and courteous. Even then, however, his constitution showed signs of infirmity. An obscure disease of the stomach and other digestive organs had taken hold of him, troubling him with chronic nervous irritations, sleeplessness, and fatigue. A year or two later, despite efforts to restore his health, these symptoms took on the more serious form of a slight paralysis.
The paralysis eventually passed, and around his second year at West Point his system seemed to shed part of its burden. He grew rapidly to a tall stature and, instead of remaining short like his father, reached the usual height of his family. But the other condition clave to him, like a Nemesis, through all his youth and the war with Mexico, and never loosened its grip until after he came to Lexington as a professor at the Military Institute, where he subdued it through the waters of the alum springs of Rockbridge, combined with his remarkable temperance. His habit of uncomplaining endurance and his modest reluctance toward anything that smacked of self-display concealed most of these sufferings. It should be remembered, if we are to appreciate his capacity and energy, that his demanding studies at the military academy and his brilliant services in Mexico were all performed while he was periodically tormented by this wretched affliction.
About this time the post of Constable in the northern half of Lewis County fell vacant. His friends obtained the appointment for him for two reasons: first, the life on horseback, it was hoped, might cure his disease and build him a sound constitution; second, the modest salary of the position might allow him to pursue his strong desire for a proper education. So widely was he favored, and so genuine was the wish to advance his prospects, that the Court overlooked the irregularity of appointing a minor to the office, accepting his uncle's surety as sufficient guarantee. We see now the young man with his account-book and his bag of bills and writs, riding on horseback across the hills of Lewis, a county then so large that the greater parts of five present counties have since been carved from it.
A word of explanation may be needed for readers who are not Virginians about the office of Constable in that state. The Justices of the Peace, beyond the County Courts they hold jointly, were each authorized to decide on their own in their own neighborhoods in disputes over property or money where the sum did not exceed twenty dollars. The Constable was the executive officer of this minor court, serving its warrants, summoning its witnesses, and carrying its decisions into effect. The Justice, as conservator of the peace, could also issue a warrant for the arrest and examination of any person suspected of crime, however grave, and at that preliminary stage the Constable was his agent. This officer was also charged with regulating certain misdemeanors and enforcing on slaves and free negroes the police regulations peculiar to their condition. He was, in a word, a kind of minor sheriff.
Jackson's neighbors testified that he filled this office with industry and fidelity. In everything he was scrupulously exact. His commitments were uniformly kept, and the small claims entrusted to him for collection were always safe. He was never cruel in exercising the powers of his position, but he strictly required others to honor their promises. These duties sometimes tested his nerve, but he always carried his point. One instance may be told to illustrate his courage and resourcefulness.
About two miles from the village of Weston, the county seat of Lewis, there lived a man who concealed an unscrupulous character beneath a show of great piety. Jackson held an execution against his property for a small claim of ten dollars, which the creditor had more than once pressed him to collect. After allowing the debtor time to pay, and advising him that it would be better to earn or borrow the sum than suffer the forced sale of some piece of his property, Jackson required from him a firm promise to meet him in Weston on a set day and pay the debt without further trouble.
He then told the creditor that his money would be ready that evening. On the appointed day Jackson was in Weston, but the debtor did not appear. When the creditor came to receive his claim, Jackson honored his own promise by paying it out of his own pocket. He then quietly stayed in the village until the following morning, when, as he expected, the delinquent appeared in the street with a fine horse.
There existed in that rough community a kind of unwritten law, established by custom and observed perhaps more faithfully than many of the statutes of the Commonwealth, which forbade that any person be forcibly pulled from the back of his horse and justified the most extreme resistance to such a humiliation. Jackson therefore waited until his debtor had dismounted, then went up to him, called him out for his breach of promise, reminded him of how long he had put up with these deceptions, and moved to seize the horse in satisfaction of his execution. The other man, who had no intention of ever paying his debts, resisted, and a fierce fight broke out in the street. In the struggle the debtor gained a momentary advantage and remounted his horse.
This was a dilemma for the young officer of the law. On one hand, his adversary now occupied that position which local custom declared untouchable. On the other hand, it was not in Jackson's nature to accept defeat when his conscience told him he was in the right. Clinging to the horse's bridle, he looked around and spotted at some distance the low doorway of a friend's stable standing open. He forced the horse toward it through a shower of blows from his opponent, who now found himself forced to choose between being knocked from the saddle by the lintel or voluntarily sliding off and giving up the horse. He prudently chose the latter, and Jackson triumphantly secured the prize in the stable while still respecting, at least to the letter, the common law of the neighborhood.
These occupations proved more favorable to the health of his body than to the formation of his character. They necessarily took him away from home influences and brought him into acquaintance with the rougher people of his neighborhood. Nor could the home influences themselves be considered very promising. His aunts had by this time married, and his uncle's house was a bachelor's establishment. Cummins Jackson, though temperate and energetic, was entirely without Christian faith, was violent and unscrupulous in character, and was much inclined to play the role of a sporting gentleman in its coarser form. He kept racehorses, organized country race meetings, and used his nephew as his favorite jockey whenever a close contest was expected. It was the talk of the whole countryside that if a horse had any winning quality in him, it would surely come out when young Tom Jackson was in the saddle.
Beyond the household, the general morals of the community were loose, and irregularities too often met with the most tolerance from those of the highest standing. Christianity had little influence in the region. Ministers were few and lacking in both learning and weight, being chiefly the least educated members of the Baptist churches or the itinerant Methodist preachers. If the citizens encountered Episcopacy or Presbyterianism at all, it was only through the passing visits and sermons of ministers from elsewhere. The state of religious opinion was exactly what a thoughtful observer would expect from such conditions.
Christian profession was largely confined to the more ignorant classes, and even among them church discipline and Christian morals were lax. Men of the leading families, like the Jacksons, were too often corrupted by the power and wealth that the abundant fertility of their new country was pressing upon their talents. Minds like theirs, self-educated through the activity and competition of vigorous times, were too strong to accept intellectual guidance from a class of ministers who dispensed, in place of sermons, their rough notions of personal piety in crude English. There were few cultivated minds to represent the authority of the gospel. As a result, most men of position were openly indifferent to Christianity, and some were outright unbelievers.
No one need wonder, then, that as young Jackson approached manhood his conduct became somewhat irregular. He was, as he himself declared, an ardent frequenter of races, "house-raisings," and country dances. But his industry remained; his truthfulness and honesty continued untarnished; and the substantial foundations of integrity were never undermined in his nature. His irregularities were never more than temporary foibles, and they yielded to the wholesome influences of the first two years of discipline at the military academy, and to the encouragement of better prospects and gratified ambitions. During the first year's course, the demerits he incurred show some remains of his wilder habits; but even then his comrades found nothing low or vile in him. From that point on he appeared at home during vacations as perfectly exemplary in his conduct, and at school as regular, hardworking, and truthful, scorning everything base, modest yet self-reliant, and though inexperienced in some of the forms of society, always full of natural dignity and courtesy.
It is clear that his nature was intensely ambitious and aspiring. He thirsted eagerly for knowledge and for well-earned distinction. He knew himself to be a depressed scion of a noble and influential family, and though he felt no morbid shame at his poverty, he longed to reinstate himself in the foremost ranks of the kindred from which orphanhood and destitution had thrust him down. This was the ruling desire and purpose of his early manhood, and it gives us the key to many of the singularities of his character: his hunger for self-improvement; his careful observance, from boyhood, of the essentials of gentlemanly bearing even where he was ignorant of its conventions; and his consistent assertion of self-respect.
The wonder is that the circumstances surrounding him did not simply make him another Cummins Jackson. The generous kindness of his uncle, the force of his example, the similarity of the two in the strength and ardor of their natures, and the stamp of a will so energetic and commanding, would all seem naturally to tend toward that result. Yet the nephew appears to have absorbed all the good traits of his uncle and escaped the bad. How is the formation of such a character, in such a society, to be explained? Was it not due to that noble constitution of his nature, that reverence for the true and the right, that manly courage which the Creator impressed upon it for his own larger ends, coupled with the purifying force of a Christian mother's teachings and prayers?
Of this uncle, General Jackson always spoke with grateful affection, as he was evidently Cummins Jackson's favorite nephew. Cummins Jackson displayed his restless love of adventure by going, at the age of forty-nine, to seek gold in California. He was driven in part by disgust at the persecution of some of his neighbors, with whom his feuds had become thoroughly entrenched. His ample farm and comfortable means could not detain him. He crossed the plains in 1849 with a well-equipped company of gold-hunters, of whom he was recognized as the leader, and died that autumn in the wilds of the mining region. Had he made a will, it is believed that General Jackson would have been a chief heir; but death disappointed whatever generous purposes he may have had, and his estate was destined to be divided among nearly a hundred nephews and nieces.
It is best here to anticipate enough to complete the history of young Jackson's official life in Lewis County. The law requires the county court to take a bond and security from every constable, in the amount of not less than two thousand dollars, for the faithful transaction of all business committed to him. When a creditor places a claim in the hands of such an officer for collection, he usually demands a receipt acknowledging the trust undertaken and the amount and nature of the claim. The officer thereby incurs a responsibility from which he must free himself either by collecting and paying over the amount of the claim, or by making every lawful effort to do so and showing that it was impracticable due to the insolvency or evasion of the debtor. When the prospect of an immediate appointment as a cadet at the Military Academy was raised, young Jackson's abiding desire for a liberal education left him no room to hesitate over smaller concerns. He instantly resigned his place.
It happened that this was a time of tightness in the local currency, and his uncle found himself unable to raise ready money for the outfit. On Cummins Jackson's advice, Thomas sold for cash whatever claims could be so disposed of, and transferred the remainder of his papers and business to his uncle for settlement. Even these prompt measures apparently failed to raise enough for his expenses. One can easily imagine that a boy of eighteen, with all his punctuality, would not yet be a thoroughly methodical accountant.
When settlements with claimants were made, and he was no longer present to supply the personal recollection on which he had largely relied, the more unscrupulous among them succeeded in making him appear their debtor for more than he had left in his uncle's hands. The result was that a few suits were brought against the uncle, as his security, for payment of sums thus claimed. Cummins Jackson probably regarded this as more opportunity than hardship, since it gave his restless mind further exercise in his beloved pursuit of litigation; and his generosity toward Thomas led him to pay the deficit without complaint.
On his return from West Point, Thomas looked thoroughly into these transactions and demanded a more accurate settlement of his accounts. To one claimant, for whom he had collected a variety of small sums at different times, making a somewhat intricate series of transactions, he stated that the party ought to be able to remember receiving various payments on account, for which the written evidence was now lost, and that where the recollection was clear and undeniable he would insist on receiving credit. He required his opponent to go through the whole account on this basis.
When the man sought to deny payments that Jackson knew perfectly well had been made, by claiming "he had no recollection of them," Jackson would reply, "Yea, but you must recollect them," and by his firm manner and careful reference to the surrounding circumstances would compel his reluctant opponent to make the honest admissions. In this way he forced the man to allow the court to reduce his claim by several amounts. In the end, all the sums for which Jackson had been bound as constable to any one creditor were fully paid, either by him or by his uncle.
