Claiborne Fox Jackson | |
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15th Governor of Missouri | |
In office January 3, 1861 – July 23, 1861 |
|
Lieutenant | Thomas Caute Reynolds |
Preceded by | Robert Marcellus Stewart |
Succeeded by | Hamilton Rowan Gamble |
Member of the Missouri House of Representatives | |
In office 1836 – 1848 |
|
Member of the Missouri Senate | |
In office 1848 |
|
Personal details | |
Born |
Fleming County, Kentucky |
April 4, 1806
Died | December 6, 1862 Little Rock, Arkansas |
(aged 56)
Cause of death | Stomach cancer |
Resting place |
Sappington Cemetery, Saline County, Missouri 39°01′58″N 93°00′27″W / 39.032778°N 93.0075°W |
Nationality | American |
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse(s) |
|
Occupation | Merchant, farmer, politician |
Military service | |
Allegiance | |
Service/branch | |
Years of service |
|
Rank | Captain (1832) |
Battles/wars |
Black Hawk War
American Civil War
Claiborne Fox Jackson (April 4, 1806 – December 6, 1862), also known as C. F. Jackson, was an American politician who was the 15th Governor of Missouri from January 3, 1861, until his deposition on July 23, 1861.
A successful manufacturing chemist, Jackson became heavily involved in the Democratic party and served twelve years in the Missouri House of Representatives, before being elected to the State Senate in 1848. In the run-up to the Civil War, he claimed to be anti-secession, in order to get elected Governor, but was secretly planning a secessionist coup in league with Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
When Union troops in St. Louis jailed the local militia, fighting broke out and Jackson declared Missouri to be a free republic. In July however, the Unionist members of the Missouri State Legislature voted to remove him from office. However, Jackson refused to accept the action as valid. In November 1861, the Confederacy recognised Missouri as its twelfth state, but the Union was increasingly dominant, and Jackson and his colleagues fled south to the Confederate state of Arkansas, pending a new invasion. Before this could happen, Jackson died of stomach cancer at Little Rock.
Claiborne Fox Jackson, son of Dempsey Carroll and Mary Orea "Molly" (née Pickett) Jackson, was born in Fleming County, Kentucky, where his father was a wealthy tobacco farmer and slaveholder. In 1826 Jackson moved with several of his older brothers to Missouri, settling in the Howard County town of Franklin. The Jackson brothers established a successful general mercantile store, where young Claiborne worked until 1832 and the outbreak of hostilities in the Black Hawk War. Claiborne Jackson organized, and was elected captain of, a unit of Howard County volunteers for the conflict. Claiborne Jackson married Jane Breathhitt Sappington, daughter of prominent frontier physician John Sappington, in early 1831 but she died within a few months of the nuptials.