Claiborne Fox Jackson

• 1. A Kentucky Planter's Son

  ›

  Claiborne Fox Jackson entered the world on the 4th of April 1806 in Fleming County, Kentucky. His father Dempsey Carroll Jackson owned tobacco plantations and held enslaved people. The young man grew up surrounded by wealth and agricultural power. He likely received his education at home rather than in a formal school setting. Several older brothers shared the family estate with him. This upbringing prepared him for a life of influence and land management. In 1826 he moved westward to Missouri with his siblings. They settled in Franklin within Howard County. There they established a successful general mercantile store that served travelers and locals alike.

  1

• 2. The Pill That Built A Fortune

  ›

  Jackson married Jane Breathitt Sappington in early 1831 inside Arrow Rock, Missouri. Her father Dr. John Sappington was a prominent frontier physician who had arrived from Maryland and Nashville. After Jane died just months after their wedding, her father created the Sappington Cemetery for family burials. Jackson then married Louisa Catherine Sappington, Jane's younger sister, in 1833. Together they manufactured and sold Dr. Sappington's Anti-Fever Pills throughout the region. These pills contained quinine derived from ground cinchona bark imported from Peru. Malaria plagued the Missouri and Mississippi valleys during this era. Traders traveling along the Santa Fe Trail eagerly purchased these medicines. The enterprise generated significant wealth for both men and their extended families. Saline County became known as Little Dixie due to its plantation culture. By 1838 Louisa died likely from complications of childbirth while their infant son Andrew also perished shortly thereafter. Jackson remarried Elizabeth Whitsett Pearson later that same year. Their partnership produced two daughters named Louisa Jane and Annie E. Jackson.

  43

• 3. Twelve Years In The Legislature

  ›

  Jackson first won election to the Missouri House of Representatives in 1836 representing Saline County. He moved his operations to Fayette in Howard County by 1838 where he worked for the local state bank branch. This position would prove politically valuable years later. He served a total of twelve years within the lower chamber including terms as Speaker in 1844 and 1846. A near-fatal political duel occurred in 1840 when Jackson wrote anonymous accusations against Whig candidate John B. Clark regarding election fraud. The conflict ended without actual gunplay though Clark challenged him directly. Later Clark switched parties and became an ally instead of an enemy. Jackson secured election to the state senate in 1848 leading pro-slavery Democrats against powerful Senator Thomas H. Benton. His father-in-law had been friends with Benton but Jackson led efforts to defeat him. The Calhoun resolutions introduced the 15th of January 1849 bore Jackson's name after being chaired by him. These documents asserted Congress lacked constitutional authority over slavery within states. They rejected the Missouri Compromise while accepting its extension to new territories. The joint legislature voted for Henry S. Geyer instead of Benton who lost his office. Benton supporters retaliated by blocking Jackson's attempts to secure Democratic nominations for U.S. Congress in both 1853 and 1855.

  24

• 4. The Deceptive Campaign For Governor

  ›

  Jackson resigned as Banking Commissioner in fall 1860 to run for governor himself. He campaigned as a Douglas Democrat supporting Stephen A. Douglas's anti-secession platform. He defeated Sample Orr by nearly ten thousand votes yet secretly worked behind scenes for secession immediately after winning. He assumed office on the 3rd of January 1861 declaring Missouri shared common bonds with slaveholding states. If the Union dissolved he argued Missouri could not separate from them. He called for a convention to decide the issue officially. On February 18 Missourians voted overwhelmingly 98, 1 against secession despite lobbying efforts by Jackson. He announced Missouri would remain an armed neutral refusing arms or men to either side. After Fort Sumter fell the 12th of April 13 President Abraham Lincoln issued proclamations calling up militia forces totaling 75,000 troops. Jackson responded publicly but privately carried secret correspondence with Confederate President Jefferson Davis planning a military coup. The key asset remained the U.S. Arsenal in St. Louis containing large stocks of weapons and ammunition. Captain Nathaniel Lyon commanded the arsenal and moved 21,000 small arms across the Mississippi River to Alton Illinois under orders from Secretary of War Simon Cameron on the 26th of April 1861.

  41

• 5. The Collapse Of His Administration

  ›

  On the 3rd of May 1861 Jackson ordered Missouri Volunteer Militia units to assemble at encampments including Camp Jackson located in Lindell's Grove. These gatherings lasted six days though intended only for training purposes according to state constitution. However the St. Louis Militia was largely commanded by secessionists who had recently enlisted a new regiment composed almost entirely of them. Confederates shipped artillery seized from Baton Rouge arriving secretly via steamboat directly to Camp Jackson. Lyon surrounded the camp on the 10th of May 1861 using pro-Union volunteer Home Guards mostly drawn from German immigrants. As prisoners marched toward the Arsenal riots erupted killing soldiers prisoners and civilian bystanders over two days. The Missouri Legislature acted quickly authorizing a State Guard following Jackson's call for dividing the state into districts. On May 11 Jackson appointed Sterling Price as Major General ordering resistance against federal forces. Price met Federal commander William S. Harney agreeing to the Price-Harney Truce permitting temporary neutrality. Yet Jackson simultaneously dispatched envoys to Jefferson Davis asking for immediate invasion while promising cooperation with Confederate armies. Union forces routed the State Guard at Boonville June 17 under command of Jackson's nephew John Sappington Marmaduke. At Carthage July 5 Jackson took command of 6,000 State Guardsmen becoming only the second sitting U.S. Governor to lead troops in battle after Isaac Shelby during the War of 1812. He drove back Colonel Franz Sigel's smaller detachment but Lyon chased him further southwest.

  54

• 6. Exile And Death In Arkansas

  ›

  On the 31st of July 1861 the Missouri State Convention declared the governor's office vacant appointing Hamilton R. Gamble as provisional governor instead. Jackson refused recognition issuing a proclamation August 5 declaring Missouri a free republic dissolving all ties with the Union. He traveled to Richmond Virginia meeting Confederate President Davis seeking support for General Price's militia forces and official recognition by the Confederacy. Some secessionist members of the Missouri General Assembly met the 28th of October 1861 in Neosho passing an ordinance of secession with Jackson present. The Confederacy recognized Missouri as its twelfth state the 28th of November 1861 electing senators and representatives to Congress though Union occupation rendered these actions moot. Jackson fled southward into Arkansas where they suffered defeat at the Battle of Pea Ridge March 1862. He traveled to southern Arkansas spring 1862 regrouping with other wealthy Missouri secessionists discussing new campaigns to retake their home state. His health deteriorated rapidly throughout that year traveling to Little Rock November 1862 for military planning meetings regarding such operations. On the 6th of December 1862 he died from pneumonia at age 56 inside a Little Rock rooming house having become weakened from stomach cancer.

  51

• 7. Burial Rights Denied And Restored

  ›

  Jackson initially received no burial permission within Missouri due to his leadership of the secession movement. Authorities interred him instead in Little Rock's Mount Holly Cemetery following his death. After the Civil War ended officials exhumed his remains reintering them finally in the family Sappington Cemetery located in Saline County Missouri. All three of his wives rest there alongside him now. In 1967 the cemetery acquired state status recognizing governor burial places across Missouri becoming preserved as a State Historic Site. His brother-in-law Meredith Miles Marmaduke also died during the war buried here too. Their father-in-law John Sappington founded this two-acre cemetery back in 1831 containing exactly 111 plots today. A provisional camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans named after Jackson exists in Caimito Panama serving as one legacy marker.

  3