One of the many tragedies of the Civil War was the divided loyalties that led to Kentuckians fighting on opposite sides.
Being a border state, Kentucky saw many instances of “brother against brother” during the war. A number of well known Clark County families — Jackson, Bush, Haggard, Quisenberry, Curry, Hanson, Combs, Rankin, Parrish, Ecton, Stevens and others — sent men to both the Union and Confederate armies.
One of the Jackson clans descend from the Revolutionary War soldier and pensioner, Josiah Jackson. Josiah’s son, Francis Flourney, served in the Kentucky legislature and was a colonel in the state militia. Francis’ son, Josiah Ashurst Jackson (1810-1862), followed his father into the iron industry.
The Red River Ironworks, Kentucky’s second iron furnace, was located at present-day Clay City. It was erected in about 1805 by two Clark County men, Robert Clark Jr. and William Smith. A succession of proprietors followed. Mason, Wheeler & Co. moved the operation to Furnace Mountain (south of Stanton) in about 1830 and renamed it the Estill Steam Furnace. They continued to run the Red River Forge at the old site.
The next owners, Laywell, Jackson & Co., added a rolling mill there in about 1838. Josiah A. Jackson and J. W. Jones controlled these enterprises by 1858. Before the Civil War, Kentucky ranked third in iron production in the United States. The industry dominated the economy of Estill County, which was blessed with the necessary resources: rich iron deposits, limestone, and extensive forest for making charcoal.
Although Powell County was formed in 1852, all of the Clay City area south of Red River—including the ironworks—was left with Estill County at that time. Josiah A. Jackson married Elizabeth Martin, a daughter of the noted Dr. Samuel D. Martin of Clark County, and the couple had seven children. The 1850 census enumerated their family living in Estill County and listed Josiah as an iron manufacturer. Two sons were named: Samuel, age 12, and George, age 10.
Ten years later, Abraham Lincoln was elected president and before his inauguration seven southern states seceded from the Union. By spring, eleven states had bolted to form the Confederate States of America. The growing strife between the North and South erupted in civil war on April 12, 1861, when the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. President Lincoln immediately telegraphed Governor Beriah Magoffin requesting Kentucky troops to help put down the rebellion. The governor refused. Josiah’s sons soon left for war—one to the North, the other to the South.
Samuel Grant Jackson traveled to western Kentucky to enlist in the Confederate Army at Camp Burnett, just over the Tennessee line. His regiment, Company H of the 4th Kentucky Infantry, was part of Gen. John C. Breckinridge’s First Kentucky Brigade, later immortalized as the Orphan Brigade. Their first major test came at the battle of Shiloh on April 6-7, 1862, the bloodiest ever fought on the continent up until that time. More Americans were killed or wounded, nearly 24,000, than in all the previous wars of the United States, combined. Jackson’s company was in the thick of the action. His regiment lost half their men in the battle that saw the Union generals Ulysses S. Grant and Don Carlos Buell win a tactical victory over the Confederate commander, Albert Sidney Johnston, who was killed on the first day of the fighting.
The Fourth Regiment was ordered to Vicksburg briefly, then fought at New Orleans before their next major test. Braxton Bragg had been driven out of Kentucky and retreated to Murfreesboro, Tenn., where he was joined by the Orphan Brigade. Union commander William Rosecrans attacked Bragg’s army at Stones River in late December. The battle was decided on Jan. 2, 1863, when Bragg withdrew from the field. The combined casualties here, over 24,000, were nearly equal on both sides but the Confederates forces were demoralized. On January 2, Bragg ordered Breckinridge to assault a well-defended hill, and he lost 1,800 men in 45 minutes. As he rode among the survivors, Breckinridge is said to have cried out, “My poor Orphans! My poor Orphans!” This month is the 150th anniversary of that ill-fated charge that counted Winchester’s Gen. Roger W. Hanson among its victims. Private Jackson, suffering with inflammatory rheumatism, was left behind during the retreat; he was taken prisoner and paroled.
His brother, George Martin Jackson, being ardently anti-slavery, supported the Union cause. In 1860, he lived in Winchester where he published a local newspaper called The National Union. (One issue of this paper is available on microfilm at the Clark County Public Library.) Jackson is said to have organized one of the first companies in Kentucky at the Red River Ironworks.
George and his men mustered in at Camp Dick Robinson immediately after it opened, and he was elected captain before his 21st birthday. He headed Company E of the 4th Kentucky Volunteer Infantry and must have been one of the youngest commanders in the Union Army. Their first action was in January 1862, when his regiment helped repulse Gen. Feliz Zollicoffer’s invasion of Kentucky at Mill Springs on the Cumberland River. In April and May they campaigned in Corinth, Mississippi, then in August went in pursuit of Bragg, following him into Kentucky. The regiment was on the field at the battle of Perryville but did not come under fire. Shortly after Perryville, Jackson resigned his commission due to poor health. He returned to his unit and took part in the assault on Missionary Ridge, Chattanooga, in November 1863. A regimental history states, “George M. Jackson, Co. E, visited the regiment just before the battle, and when it was ordered into action took a musket and fell in with his old company and fought gallantly throughout the engagement.” It could have been literally “brother against brother” at Missionary Ridge; Samuel Grant Jackson’s regiment was in the engagement, but he had been taken prisoner and was out of the war by then.
There is a sad footnote to this family’s involvement in the war. When Bragg retreated from Kentucky after Perryville, the father, Josiah A. Jackson, joined company with the Union Army. According to the story, “he did not belong to the army, but thought it necessary to leave home when the Confederate forces came.” He died Oct. 29, 1862, “occasioned by exposure on a trip through the mountain in company with the army.”
Josiah, his wife Elizabeth and son Samuel are buried in Winchester Cemetery. Son George moved to Clay County, Ark., and his burial place is unknown.
