USA > Tennessee > Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee > Part 99
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Gen. Jackson's next service was at Spring Hill, Ten - nessee, on the left of Bragg's army, in 1862, Gen. For- rest commanding the First division of Gen. Van Dorn's corps, and Gen. Jackson commanding the Second di- vision. Jackson planned and made the fight at Thomp son's Station, his command consisting of Gen. Frank Armstrong's brigade of Mississipians and Tennesseans, and Gen. Sul. Ross' Texas brigade. He lost in that fight, in twenty minutes, two hundred and sixty-five men, killed and wounded, but succeeded in capturing Col. Coburn's Federal brigade of one thousand six hundred infantry.
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After various skirmishes with the enemy in front of Gen. Brage, Gen. Jackson was ordered to join Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, in the fall of 1863, at Canton, Mississippi. He commanded the cavalry of that army in all the movements on the Big Black river, for the relief of Vicksburg, and opposing Sherman's attempted marches to Meridian, capturing a goodly number of pris- oners, army trains, and destroying much of Sherman's supplies.
When Gen. Joseph E. Johnston was assigned to the Army of Tennessee, then at. Dalton, Georgia, at his re- quest, Jackson's command was transferred there, as previously, at Johnston's request, he was transferred from Tennessee to Mississippi. "He was assigned by Gen. Johnston to duty as commander of the cavalry on the left wing of his army, which position he held during the entire memorable Georgia campaign, reporting di- rectly to Gen. Johnston, a member of every council of war that was held, and participating in all the engage- ments. His command performed very faithful service; among other notable events, the defeat of Kilpatrick, at Lovejoy Station, and again, in conjunction with Gen. Wheeler, at Newnan, Georgia, which resulted in the capture of one thousand five hundred Federal cavalry. Gen. Jackson's command participated actively and most gallantly in the desperate fights around Atlanta, while Gen. Hood was commanding the army; also in the memorable battle Gen. Hardee fought against Sher- man's army, at Jonesborough, Georgia.
Gen. Jackson was then selected by Gen. Hood to ac- company him in his move around Sherman into Ton- nessee. On reaching Florence, Alabama, he was put under command of Gen. Forrest. Jackson's column led the advance into Tennessee, pursuing most vigor- onsly the retreating Federal army. Unaided, and alone, it held Schofield's army at bay at Spring Hill, Tennessee, all night, after Hood's disastrous failure to attack that army with his whole force, that afternoon. It participated in the bloody battle of Franklin, one of the most desperate engagements of the whole war, and parsued the flying Federals, leading the Confederate ad- vance up to within three miles of the strongly fortified city of Nashville. Thenee it moved with Forrest and operated around Murfreesborough, where Jackson de- feated and drove back the enemy to their entrench- ments, after the infantry, commanded by Gen. Bate, had fed the field, capturing, while there, a train seek- ing to succor Murfreesborough, together with a large number of prisoners.
Upon the defeat of Hood's army besieging Nashville, Gen. Jackson was ordered over to the Columbia and Franklin turnpike, to sit in front of the victorious Fed rals. under Gen. George H. Thomas, who were then advancing. This he did successfully, and his command bore" the brunt of the retreat from there to within twenty miles of the Tennessee river, and to their credit be it said, did more than any other command in pre-
venting the capture of Hood's entire army-recross- ing the Tennessee river in as good order and as well organized as when they made their march into Ten-
Jackson's command was noted for its discipline and famous for its true fighting qualities. For this service Gen. Jackson was assigned to the command of all of . Forrest's cavalry troops and the Texas brigade, making three brigades, and was recommended for promotion by Gen. Dick Taylor and Gen. N. B. Forrest, as he had previously often been recommended by Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, Gen. Hardee and Gen. Leonidas Polk. Pro- motion, however, was never given him, because, while in Mississippi, Gen. Jackson arrested a young friend of Mr. Joseph Davis, a brother of President Davis, for taking government cotton, carrying it into Vicksburg and selling it, and declining to accede to the request of Joseph Davis for the release of his friend. This was regarded as a high-handed offense against the said Jo- seph Davis, who was all-powerful with his brother Jeff., and which offense was shared in by President Davis.
Gen. Jackson next served with his command in the Alabama campaign, defeating tien. Croxton and Gen. McCook, of the Federal army, and arrived at Marion Junction, Alabama, where he learned of Forrest's de- feat at Selma. Forrest then moved his forces to Gaines- ville, Alabama, at which time Gen. Taylor surrendered to Gen. Canby the troops of that department. Here Gen. Jackson was appointed by Gen. Dick Taylor, com- missioner on the part of the Confederate States, asso- ciated with tien. Dennis, of the Federal army, for the parole of the Confederate troops at Gainesville, Ala- bama, and Columbus, Georgia. This was Gen. Jack- son's last military service. The war had ended. The sword of the dauntless cavalry leader was sheathed. Henceforth the services he saw in the field were to serve him well in the peaceful pursuits of the farm. He returned to his home at Jackson, Tennessee, after the surrender, and his father turned over two cotton plantations to him, which he managed successfully until the fall of' IS68.
On December 15, 1868, he married Miss Selene Hard- ing, of Belle Meade, near Nashville, Tennessee, daugh- ter of Gen. William G. Harding, a very full and most interesting sketch of whose life and family connections appears elsewhere in this volume. : Mrs. Jackson's sis- ter, nee Miss Mary Harding, is the wife of Judge Howell E. Jackson, late United States senator from Tennessee, and judge of the United States circuit court for the Sixth circuit-two brothers marrying two sis- ters.
Mrs. Jackson was educated at the old Nashville Fe- male Academy, under Dr. C. D. Elliott, and completed her education in Mme. Masse's private French school, in Philadelphia. She is a highly cultivated lady, speak- ing French fluently, and. while domestic. in her tastes and habits, and supervising her household department,
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her active housekeeper is her cousin, Miss Lizzie Iloover. A lady of true refinement in every pulsation and thought, cultivated and well read, Mrs. Jackson is also the most devoted daughter, wife and mother. Her sphere and her glory is the home circle. Sociable in her nature, and fond of the company of her friends, her health yet forbids her being a lady of society. She loyally and lovingly subscribes to the idea that her duty is first to the dear ones at home, and the nearer she can attain perfeet happiness in this true sphere the more bright are the glimpses of heaven. Thoroughly imbued with the true spirit of Christianity, she is sympathetic in her nature, and given to large yet uh- ostentatious charity. No one possesses a more tender heart for the poor, the needy and distressed than she. Possessed of principle of the highest order, and the per- sonification of truth-pure and unembellished ; a Ten- nessean, highly charged with pride of ancestry and of State; intensely southern in her feelings, and without concealment in the expression of them; devoted to the Confederate soldier, and sympathizing with and urging on every movement looking to the perpetuation of the memory of the fallen heroes of the Confederate cause- she is endeared, not alone to her family and friends, but is claimed as one of the jewels of the commonwealth, a true-blooded southern lady of the fairest and most deli- cate organization. How vividly apt, in contemplating this happy union, are the poet's words, " None but the brave deserve the fair." Born, as her father was, on God's beauty spot of earth, the lovely Belle Meade estate, which is her home, as it was and is her father's, and was her grandfather's, she is very pronounced in her preference of a farmer's life for her son, in spite of all the allurements of political or fashionable existence.
By his marriage with Miss Harding, Gen. Jackson has three most interesting, bright and happy children, all born at Belle Meade: (1). Eunice Jackson, was born February 8, 1871. This daughter, now entering her " teens," is distinguishing herself by conducting a Sunday-school for the colored children on the Belle Meade estate, and a charitable society in Nashville bears her name, " The Eunice Jackson Society," in the interest of which a monthly periodical, entitled Women at Home, is published. Her father said of her, " Pa rents are apt to be partial to their children, but if this daughter has a fault we have not discovered it, which is saying a great deal." With a Grecian face, a graceful figure, and modest manners, she promises to be an honor to the name she inherits. (2). William Hard- ing Jackson, born July 17, 1874. (3). Selene Harding Jackson, born August 20, 1876.
Gen. Jackson and wife, and the daughter Eunice, are members of MeKendree church (Methodist Epis- copal, south), of which he is also trustee. Originally, Gen. Jackson, as was his father and brother, was a Whig, but since the war he has acted with the Democratic party. He has never held any office, subscribing to the
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idea that the holding of political office is oftentimes in- compatible with a high order of self-respect and per- sonal independence.
Gen. Jackson's father. Dr. Alexander Jackson, was a native of Virginia, and a graduate of the Jefferson Medical College, at Philadelphia. He married in Vir- ginia, and settled first at. Paris, Tennessee, where he practiced a few years, and finally located at Jackson, where he died, in 1880, at the age of seventy six. He was a man of considerable property, which he had ac- cumulated by the practice of medicine and invest- ments in negroes and land. He was one of the re- markable men of the State, of extensive reading, a fine writer, his style being clear, perspicuous and terse. He served in the Legislature two terms, 1819-50 and 1851-52, during the inauguration of the internal im- provement system. He was a member of the agricul- tural board of Tennessee, and took great interest in all matters pertaining to agriculture. He was a member of the Methodist church. Of a philosophical turn of mind, he took life easily and smoothly, never permitting anything to disturb him. Fond of good living, he was exceptionally hospitable to the day of his death. He passed the last half of his life in reading, writing and visiting all portions of America. Though possessed of as much brain as any man in the State, he was not am- bitious; and upon his writings and labors many men in Tennessee have risen to prominence. He was one of the remarkable conversationalists of Tennessee; of a rare jovial and social temperament, not given to excess, however ; fond of the society of young people ; given to music, the arts and sciences, yet possessed of an ex- ceedingly practical turn of mind, and was a man of rare judgment as to men and measures. In the rearing of his boys, his cardinal principles were to impress upon them that truth is the bed-rock of all character, and to establish an intimate companionship with them. Of the paternal ancestry of Gen. Jackson further back, the editor finds no trace, except that the family is of Irish stock.
tien, Jackson's mother, ace Miss Mary Hurt, was born in Halifax county, Virginia, daughter of parson Robert Hurt, a Baptist minister, a man of rare ora- torical and conversational powers.
Gen. Jackson's maternal uncle, Maj. Robert Hurt, of Jackson, was a member of the Legislature, and of the bureau of agriculture of the State, a man of most pleas- ing address and great popularity. He has sons and daughters in Jackson, Tennessee. Gen. Jackson's ma- ternal unele, William Hart, was noted as a turf man, in Virginia, a contemporary of William B. Johnson, " the Napoleon of the turf." His children are in Virginia. John and Henry Hurt are influential men in their re- spective neighborhoods, and both have respresented their counties in the Virginia Legislature. Gen. Jack- son's great-unele. James Hurt, a Baptist minister, a man of strong brain, and of great honor and integrity,
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was one of the pioneers of West Tennessee. He has left sons and daughters of five worth, most of whom live near Milan, Tennessee. His eldest son, James Hurt, is the most distinguished member of the Su preme bench of Texas.
Gen. Jackson's father married three times, and had two sons by each marriage. The two middle sons, James and Milton Jackson, are respectable farmers in West Tennessee, By the last marriage, he had two sons, Samuel Miller and Robert Turner Jackson. Sam- uel Miller Jackson is a hardware merchant in Dyers- burg, Tennessee, and the younger, Robert Turner Jack- son, of Nashville, has all the elements of a most promi- nent lawyer, as he is possessed of the most sterling char- acter. He is a member of the law firm of Whitworth & Jackson, of Nashville.
Soon after the marriage of Gen. Jackson to Miss Harding, he sold out his planting interests in West Tennessee and came to Belle Meade, and became the assistant of Gen. Harding in the management of his farm. This was done after the earnest and polite invi- tation of Gen. Harding, that he would make his home with him, stating that there was plenty of room and plenty of work for them both, and as he was growing old he did not wish to be separated from his daughter, who had charge of his household affairs. The relations between the two in that position have been most pleas- ant, agreeable and confidential. He has devoted him- self to the business with intelligence, energy and assi- duity. During this period, from 1868 to 1886, he has occupied a front rank in all that pertains to agricul- tural matters, either State or national, being the prime mover in organizing and conducting, as chairman of the executive committee, the valuable agricultural journal known as the Rural San. his idea being that agricul- tural journals, like almanacs, should be calculated for the latitudes they are designed to serve. His observa- tion had taught him that many young men at the South were swamped in agricultural pursuits, in the effort to apply the teachings of northern agricultural journals to the latitude and conditions of the South, the conditions between the two sections, in point of agriculture, being entirely different. In the East, where land is the prin- cipal cost of production, the primary object is to bring about the greatest yield to the acre, which must be done by heavy manuring or most scientific modes of culture. In the South, where land is plentiful and cheap, and labor the principal cost of production, the object is to make the most per hand, going over the greatest number of acres with a given force, relying upon proper rotation of crops and the great fertilizer, red clover, to keep the soil always in good heart.
He has filled the positions of president of the State association of farmers; president of the Bureau of Agriculture of the State, and the financial agent of that bureau, under the administration of Gov. John C. Brown, which bureau got out the work entitled " The
Resources of Tennessee," in two volumes, the principal work of reference at this day, as it is descriptive of the State by grand divisions, from east to west, also an an accurate description of each county of the State. In that work is an accurate geological and agricultural map of the State, which originated with Gen. Jackson, his idea being a suggestion, which led to the prepara- tion of this map, that as the agricultural products of a State hinge so intimately upon the geological formation, it was well to have a combined map showing forth both the geological formation and agricultural production of each county. It is a source of pride to him that this work was published at a cost less, by two-thirds, than any similar work of equal merit in any State of the Union, and it was gratifying to him that he should have presented the anomaly, hitherto unheard-of, of covering back into the treasury over six thousand dol- lars of what was considered a small legislative appro- priation for the' purpose, for which he received the thanks of the Legislature. for fidelity and good judg- ment in the execution of this trust. This work, pub- lished in different languages, and scattered abroad, was the initiatory movement which has led to the attraction of immigration and capital to our borders. Regarding it as in the nature of a census, which should only be gotten out at stated intervals, he recommended to Gov. John C. Brown that he, the president, and his asso- ciates of the bureau, should resign, and thus save the State that expense, and create the office of commis- sioner of agriculture, who should be provided with a large room at the capitol, and whose duty should be to collect specimens of minerals, ores and woods, together with agricultural products of the State, and there be prepared to give intelligent and impartial information to the visitor and intending settler in our State, which suggestion was adopted, and is carried out to the pres- ent day.
He was the originator of the National Agricultural Congress and held the first meeting in the city of Nash- ville, was subsequently elected president of that body, and has been among the foremost in advancing the interests of his State. He has written and spoken a great deal in advocacy of reforms tending to curtail ex- travagant expenditure in State, county and municipal government ; also in those measures that tend to lighten the burdens of the tillers of the soil in the State and nation, upon whose shoulders the permanency and splendor of the government rest.
In the fall of 1883, he was selected as the president of the Safe Deposit, Trust and Banking Company of Nashville.
When Gen. Jackson was asked what methods in life- military and civic -- he had brought to bear on his efforts for success, he replied : " If I could say that there was one cause above all others that has tended to my suc- cess in every position in which I have been placed, it is a commendable pride of character-not content to do
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as well as others have done, but to study the salient points of successful characters of men in the different fields in which I have been placed, and bring to bear the most careful judgment, coupled with energy, intense application, system and will power to accomplish the greatest results. These qualities, coupled with business courage and dash, account for my success."
He is a man given to boldness of speech without mineing words. His reputation in Tennessee is such that those who know him know they can, by asking, find out where he stands as to persons and measures. Of singular simplicity and transparency of character, he is a strong man, calm, slow, determined, driving right on to his purpose. Of very social disposition, enjoying above all things the society of friends, in his command of language and power of expressing in few words comprehensive views, no man is more entertaining. He is the autoerat of the dinner table. It is one great advantage of a farmer's life that he has no temptation to conceal his opinions lest he lose custom or patronage, for he de- pends on neither for his support. Still, even if this were not so. Gen. Jackson would be a man of his own mind, with courage to think right, to speak right and to do right. Even his personal appearance declares this. He stands five feet nine and a half inches high, weighs two hundred and twenty pounds, is compactly, even powerfully, built ; has blue eyes, auburn hair, a neck of force, a chin of determination, and that look of command that made his soldiers love and obey " Old Red," as they familiarly called him, and to go forward when he ordered-even into the very jaws of death.
BELLE MEADE.
The Creator of the universe honored the vocation of farming by creating a garden eastward in Eden and re- quiring man to dress it and keep it, and by reason of being surrounded in this calling of agriculturist by nature in its purity and diversity, the desire to be an agriculturist has become ingrained in the composition of man, and all desire to be farmers. This vocation, to insure success, requires greater intellect, better judg- ment, and more energy than any other, and to the intelligent agriculturist opens up a wider field of thought, in both the science and art of agriculture, than in any other calling. It gives to him a greater breadth of intellect, carrying him out on a broader and higher plane of conservative thought and a purer plane of life, comparatively free from the great conflicts and wrang- lings of men in the more active trading and commercial pursuits.
To gratify the farmers of the State, the editor pre- sents, from a personal visit, a description of Belle Meade -the largest stock farm in Tennessee, and not ex- ceeded in size by any in Kentucky, The estate con- tains about five thousand acres in one body, all under fence, the outer fence, which is of stone, being eighteen
miles in length, and of a probable value of fifty or sixty dollars an acre. There are in cultivation two hun- dred and fifty acres in corn ; cotton, none; wheat, two hundred acres (but henceforward no more wheat will be grown on the place, as there is no money in the crop); barley, one hundred aeres, for grinding and feed- ing to stock in winter; clover and orchard grass, three hundred acres; timothy, four hundred acres; oats, two hundred and fifty acres- the remainder of this magnifi- cent domain, say three thousand acres, being well set in blue grass and orchard grass pastures.
This Cumberland basin of Tennessee was designed by the Creator to be a grass producing and stock raising section. That farmer who undertakes to deffect it from this idea to large cultivated crops is flying in the face of nature, and undoubtedly pursuing a losing business. Or to frame it differently, the farmer in this section who carries anything in the shape of grain or hay to the man in the city, dealing in those articles, inquiring the price of the man who wishes to buy, and sells to him, is doing a foolish business. Make it a grass producing section, as it was designed, put your surplus produce into stock and let the buyer come to you to inquire the price. This comprises a great deal of the prosperity of the Cumberland basin. On no other basis can the farmers of this section make tongue and buckle meet. The farmers of this section are not in a healthy condi- tion only as they are dealing in stock.
The stock on the Belle Meade farm consists, first in importance, of five thoroughbred stallions of national and international reputation, viz. : Bramble, valued at ten thousand dollars; Enquirer, valued at twenty-five thousand dollars; imported Great Tom (from Lord Fal- mouth, of England), valued at twenty thousand dol- lars; Luke Blackburn, valued at twenty-five thousand dollars, and Plenipo, at five thousand dollars.
Belle Meade was the home of the world-renowned stallion, imported Bonnie Scotland, and Luke Black- burn is his most distinguished son-a worthy son of the old sire who stood at the head of American stallions for three consecutive years. Luke Blackburn was the king of the turf in America, and pronounced the fleetest horse in the world by Col. M. II. Sanford, who owned the " North Elkton Breeding Farm : in Kentucky.
On the farm are ninety thoroughbred brood mares, all of distinguished families, and worth on an average five hundred dollars each. These thoroughbred ani- mals trace their pedigrees in an unbroken line back to the sixteenth century, to the Barb horse of the Arabian desert.
A great feature of Belle Meade, as it is indeed al- ways an epoch in American turf circles, is the annual sale of thoroughbred yearlings. It usually occurs about the latter part of April or first of May, and attracts purchasers from all parts of the United States and the Canadas. Usually about forty-five or fifty head of the beautiful "young things " are auctioned off at
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each sale. There have been eighteen annual sales of yearlings from Gen. Harding's stud, and in all that time the produce of Belle Meade stallions have never failed to get a large proportion of the plums of the turf. The best year the farm ever had was in 1831, the year after Bonnie Scotland stood at the head of the list of winning stallions, his get that year credit- ing him with one hundred and thirty-seven races and one hundred and five thousand dollars. So command ing a lead did Bonnie Scotland have that year that Leamington, who came next, was not within sixty thousand dollars of him. The immediate consequence was that the sons and daughters of the old Tennessee stallion brought in 1881 an aggregate of forty-one thou- sand dollars, eleven head averaging over one thousand nine hundred dollars, and one bringing the phenomenal sum of seven thousand five hundred dollars.
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