Kentucky’s Civil War leaders...
At Perryville, Jackson was in wrong place
at wrong time as Maney’s men charged

(EDITOR’S NOTE:  This is the 25th in a series about Kentucky’s officers and battle leaders during the Civil War.)

Union Brig. Gen. James S. Jackson was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Confederate Gen. George Maney’s brigade drew heavy fire at the Battle of Perryville and retreated straight into Jackson’s 10th Ohio Division, leveling their own heavy fire.

“Well, I’ll be damned if this is not getting rather particular,” Jackson commented, just as he was struck in the chest by a Confederate minie ball that killed him.

His death came on the heels of his promotion to brigadier general, ending a military career that promised unusual brilliancy.

A lawyer and Fayette County native, Jackson entered the Union Army in December 1861, raising a cavalry company and elected colonel of the 3rd Kentucky Cavalry. He was residing in Hopkinsville in 1861 and serving in the 37th Congress from Kentucky’s Second District when President Lincoln offered him command of a regiment.

Jackson’s regiment was used on scout duty in Southwestern Kentucky, a section of the State then under the control of the Confederates. Subsequently, he was assigned to the division of Gen. T. L. Crittenden and was engaged with his regiment at Shiloh, Corinth and Iuka, Miss., and at Florence and Athens, Ala. At Athens, his regiment passed into the command of Col. Eli H. Murray and he was promoted to brigadier general Aug. 13, 1862.

He was killed at Perryville on Oct. 4, 1862.

Jackson pursued classical studies at Centre College and was graduated from Jefferson College in Cannonsburg, Pa., in 1844, and the following year from the law department of Transylvania University. He was admitted to the bar and began practicing law.

During the Mexican-American War, Jackson enlisted on June 9, 1846, as a private in the 1st Kentucky Cavalry; he was named a third lieutenant one month later. Jackson participated in a duel with Capt. Thomas Francis Marshall; fearing a court martial, he resigned from the Army Oct. 10, 1846. He re-joined the army with the outbreak of the Civil War.

Married to the former Patty Buford, the couple had four children. Jackson was buried at Louisville’s Cave Hill Cemetery, but was reinterred in 1863 at Riverside Cemetery in Hopkinsville.