James S. Jackson

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For other persons of a similar name see James Jackson.

James Streshly Jackson (September 27, 1823 – October 8, 1862) was a U.S. Representative from Kentucky and a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War.

Born in Fayette County, Kentucky, Jackson pursued classical studies in Centre College, Danville, Kentucky. He was graduated from Jefferson College, Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1844, and from the law department of Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky, in 1845. That same year he was admitted to the bar and commenced the practice of law in Greenupsburg, Kentucky.

During the Mexican-American War, he enlisted as a private in the First Kentucky Cavalry June 9, 1846; he was commissioned third lieutenant on July 9, 1846. He resigned October 10, 1846.

He moved to Hopkinsville in 1859. Jackson was elected as a Unionist to the Thirty-seventh Congress and served from March 4 to December 13, 1861, when he resigned to enter the Union Army.

Jackson raised a troop of cavalrymen and was commissioned colonel of the Third Regiment, Kentucky Volunteer Cavalry on December 13, 1861. He became a brigadier general of volunteers on July 16, 1862. He was killed in the Battle of Perryville on October 8, 1862. He was interred in Riverside Cemetery in Hopkinsville.