An Officer Of Merit

Union General Conrad Feger Jackson from Pennsylvania was killed December 13^th 1862 in action at the Battle of Fredericksburg.

Conrad Feger Jackson was born September 11^th 1813 in Alsace, Berks, Pennsylvania the son of Isaac Jackson a devote Quaker.  Jackson’s father died when he was 5 years old and Jackson went to live with an Uncle, Joseph Jackson, in Chester County Pennsylvania.  He received his education at the local Quaker schools, before becoming a conductor on the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad.  Jackson was appointed by President James K Polk to the revenue service and during the Mexican American War he carried dispatches for General Winfield Scott.  After returning to Pennsylvania he took a job with a petroleum oil company in the Kanawha Valley area of Virginia, which was where he was when the Civil War started.

Upon returning to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Jackson organized what became the 9^th Pennsylvania Reserve.  Jackson was appointed the Colonel of the 9^th by Pennsylvania Governor Andrew G Curtin, and served with them throughout the Peninsula Campaign.  He received a promotion to Brigadier General on July 17^th 1862 and was place in command of the 3^rd Brigade of the Pennsylvania Reserves, leading them at the second Battle of Bull Run and Antietam.

On December 13^th 1862 at Fredericksburg Jackson led his brigade at the right wing of the Confederate army.  He had just road forward to give an order to clear the ground in his front, when a Confederate volley hit him in the head, killing him and his aide.  Jackson’s division leader General George Gorden Meade said of his death, "The public service has also to mourn the loss of Brigadier General C Feger Jackson, an officer of merit and reputation, who owed his position to his gallantry and good conduct in previous actions."  His body was taken back to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where his buried in the Allegheny Cemetery there.