Utah Civil War Casualty

Henry Wells Jackson's life connected several defining chapters of nineteenth-century American history: westward migration, the Mormon Battalion, the California Gold Rush, Utah pioneer settlement, overland transportation, and finally the American Civil War. Jackson was born March 10, 1827. As a young man, he joined the Mormon Battalion, the approximately 500-man military unit recruited during the Mexican-American War from Latter-day Saint emigrants then traveling west. Jackson served in Company D as a musician. The Mormon Battalion's famous journey took its members across an enormous stretch of the American West and eventually to California. After his military service, Jackson participated in the California Gold Rush. He panned for gold at Mormon Island, a mining settlement along the American River in the area now associated with Folsom Lake. According to the history preserved by DUP Marker #576, Jackson used gold he obtained in California to help pay for his wedding. On February 3, 1850, Henry married Eliza Ann Dibble in Salt Lake City. Brigham Young performed the marriage. Henry and Eliza began raising a family and participated in the wider Latter-day Saint colonization of the West. They were associated with settlement efforts in Tooele Valley in Utah and later San Bernardino, California. Jackson's work eventually connected him to another major chapter of western history: the overland mail. In 1858, he carried mail for George Chorpenning's overland mail operation. Chorpenning held federal contracts to transport mail across difficult western routes before the establishment of the Pony Express. The work did not end well financially for Jackson. According to the account preserved on the historical marker, poor management left him owed approximately $1,300 in back wages—a substantial amount of money at the time. Jackson eventually traveled east in an effort to collect what he was owed. Payment was delayed, forcing him to find other employment. He took work as a wagon master. By then, the United States was being torn apart by the Civil War. Jackson's travels placed him directly in the path of the conflict. He was captured by Confederate forces and held as a prisoner for approximately three months. He was eventually released as part of a prisoner exchange. The experience influenced Jackson's next decision. He chose to enter Union military service. Jackson enlisted in the 1st Regiment, District of Columbia Volunteer Cavalry. His earlier military experience contributed to his receiving a commission as a lieutenant. The regiment operated in Virginia during a period of intense fighting in 1864. Its duties included cavalry operations in a region where Union and Confederate forces were struggling for control of transportation routes and strategic territory. On May 8, 1864, Jackson participated in fighting at White Bridge near Jarratt's Station, Virginia. During the engagement, Jackson was shot. He survived the initial wound, but nineteenth-century battlefield medicine had limited ability to prevent or control serious infections. His wound became infected. For nineteen days Jackson struggled with the effects of the injury. He died on May 27, 1864, at the age of 37. His death left Eliza a widow with three children. Jackson was buried in what is now Hampton National Cemetery in Virginia, far from the Utah communities where he had lived and the family he had left behind. His story occupies a distinctive place in Utah's Civil War history. DUP Marker #576 identifies Jackson as the only Utah battle fatality of the Civil War and the first known Latter-day Saint killed in a United States national conflict. Utah Territory's relationship with the Civil War was unusual. Most Utah troops did not fight Confederate armies. Instead, Utah volunteers were primarily called to protect the transcontinental mail and telegraph routes that connected the eastern and western United States. In April 1862, Utah volunteers under Robert T. Burton and Lot Smith entered federal service to protect those communications routes. California Volunteers later established Camp Douglas—now Fort Douglas—overlooking Salt Lake City. Jackson's story was different. His travels had taken him east, and his enlistment in the District of Columbia cavalry placed him directly in the war's eastern theater. More than 150 years after his death, the International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers added a plaque telling Jackson's story to the existing Utah and the Civil War monument on the Utah State Capitol grounds. DUP Historical Marker #576 was erected on November 11, 2015—Veterans Day. The placement beside the older Utah Civil War monument is particularly fitting. Marker #270 tells the broader story of Utah Territory's Civil War service, while Marker #576 focuses on the extraordinary life of one Utah pioneer whose path eventually carried him into battle in Virginia.

When the American Civil War began in 1861, Utah was a United States territory rather than a state. Relations between Utah's predominantly Latter-day Saint population and the federal government had been strained by the Utah War only a few years earlier. Despite those tensions, Utah remained under United States authority during the Civil War, and Utah volunteers performed important military duties for the Union. The transcontinental mail and telegraph lines were strategically important because they connected California and the western territories with the rest of the Union. Protecting those routes became Utah's most significant direct military contribution. On April 25, 1862, Acting Governor Frank Fuller called volunteers from the Nauvoo Legion into service. Twenty-four men commanded by Colonel Robert T. Burton departed the following day. President Abraham Lincoln's administration separately authorized Brigham Young to raise a cavalry company for ninety days of federal service. Captain Lot Smith commanded the resulting force of more than one hundred men. Their principal mission was not to fight Confederate armies but to protect and repair the mail and telegraph route across the plains. Later in 1862, Colonel Patrick Edward Connor arrived in Utah with California Volunteers and established Camp Douglas overlooking Salt Lake City. Federal troops remained there throughout the Civil War. Henry Wells Jackson followed a different path into Union service. His attempt to recover unpaid wages from his earlier mail work had taken him east, where he was captured and imprisoned by Confederate forces. After his release, Jackson joined the 1st Regiment, District of Columbia Volunteer Cavalry. That service placed him directly within the eastern military conflict. His fatal wounding in Virginia in May 1864 occurred during one of the Civil War's bloodiest years, when Union forces were applying increasing military pressure throughout Virginia. Jackson's story therefore bridges Utah's pioneer history and the national Civil War. The monument on the Utah State Capitol grounds places his individual sacrifice alongside the broader story of Utah men who served the Union by protecting the nation's western communications network.