James W. Jackson

James Jackson shooting Col. Ellsworth

The Marshall House, Alexandria, Virginia – the place where Elmer Ellsworth was shot to death by Jackson. (photo 1861)

James W. Jackson (ca. 1824 – May 24, 1861) was an ardent secessionist and the proprietor of the Marshall House, an inn located in the city of Alexandria, Virginia, at the beginning of the American Civil War. He is known for flying a large Confederate flag atop his inn that was visible to President Abraham Lincoln from the White House and for killing Col. Elmer Ellsworth in an incident that marked the first conspicuous casualty and the first killing of a Union officer in the Civil War. Jackson was killed immediately after he killed Ellsworth.

The incident

During the month that Virginia voters contemplated whether to follow the recommendation of the Virginia Secession Convention, President Abraham Lincoln in the White House observed Jackson's large Confederate flag flying atop the Marshall House building in Alexandria, across the Potomac River.^[1] On May 24, 1861, the day after Virginia voters ratified the secession recommendation, federal troops crossed the Potomac and captured Alexandria. One federal regiment was the famously flamboyant 11th New York Zouave Infantry, led by Col. Elmer Ellsworth, who was a close friend of Lincoln and had seen the Confederate flag while visiting Lincoln in the White House. When passing the Marshall House, Ellsworth saw the offending flag still flying, and he went inside the building to seize it on behalf of the Union army. Jackson initially pretended to be a disheveled boarder at the house until Ellsworth climbed the stairs and removed the flag from the flagpole. As Ellsworth returned downstairs with the flag, Jackson suddenly reappeared and shot him dead with an English-made double-barrel shotgun.^[2] Then Francis E. Brownell of Ellsworth's regiment shot Jackson dead.

Both men immediately became celebrated martyrs for their respective causes.^[3]

Legacy

Jackson was buried in the Fairfax city cemetery.^[4] In 1862, an account of his death was published in Richmond.^[5] In 1863, Union officials established a contraband camp (for former slaves) on or adjacent to or land owned by Jackson's widow in Lewinsville.^[6]

In 1999, sociologist James W. Loewen noted that the monument erected by the Sons of Confederate Veterans on the Marshall House decades later only mentioned Jackson's death, and failed to mention Ellsworth at all.^[7][8] Adam Goodheart further discussed the incident and the monument in his 2011 book, 1861: The Civil War Awakening.^[1]

The plaque called Jackson the "first martyr to the cause of Southern Independence" and said he "was killed by federal soldiers while defending his property and personal rights ... in defence of his home and the sacred soil of his native state".^[9] In full, it read

The Marshall House
stood upon this site, and within the building
on the early morning of May 24, 1861
James W. Jackson
was killed by federal soldiers while defending his property and
personal rights as stated in the verdict of the coroners jury.
He was
the first martyr to the cause of Southern Independence.
The justice of history does not permit his name to be forgotten.
Not in the excitement of battle, but coolly and for a great principle,
he laid down his life, an example to all, in defence of his home and
the sacred soil of his native state
Virginia

The plaque was removed by the new owners of The Marriott Autograph Collection hotel, The Alexandrian, and returned to the Sons of Confederate Veterans in 2017.

References