Jesse Laxton

Jesse Laxton was a soldier in the Civil War who was killed on Brimstone Creek and buried on Smith Creek in 1864, according to Paul Roy in Scott County in the Civil War, citing Scott County, TN and Its Families. Roy wrote that Laxton was married to Jenny Laxton, who remarried to Lewis Dolen.

The only Jesse Laxton from Scott County who there is a record of in the Civil War fought for the Confederate States of America and was not killed in Scott County, but in Missouri on Feb. 4, 1863.

See Also: Scott Countians killed in war

Biography

Jesse Laxton was born about 1821 in Campbell County, the son of Thomas Laxton and Elizabeth Goad. When the 1860 census was taken, he was married to Jane Thompson and they had six children: Catherine (age 8), Lynsy (age 6), James (age 5), Nancy (age 4) and Heley (or Hilda, age 1). There’s also an Elizabeth listed in the household, age not given.

Jesse and Jane were married on Nov. 20, 1849 in Campbell County.

Civil War

There are what appears to be two sets of records linking a Jesse Laxton to the Confederate army. One enlisted on Aug. 26, 1862 in Jackson County, Tenn. and was assigned to Co. G, 8th Regiment, Tennessee Cavalry. Another enlisted on Sept. 1, 1862, location unknown, and was assigned to Co. G, 13th Regiment, Tennessee Cavalry.

There was a Jesse Laxton who was captured and shipped to St. Louis as a prisoner of war, where he died of pneumonia on Feb. 4, 1863. He was first interred at Christ Church Cemetery in St. Louis, but his body was disinterred after the war and moved to Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis. According to the headstone, this particular Jesse Laxton was a member of Co. G, 8th Regiment. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this Jesse Laxton may have been fighting under Gen. Nathan Bedford Forest at Parker’s Crossroads, Tenn. on Dec. 31, 1862 when he was captured.

If, indeed, Jesse Laxton of the 8th Regiment and Jesse Laxton of the 13th Regiment are two different people, it should be noted that the 8th Regiment Jesse Laxton enlisted at Jackson County, Tenn., and there was a Jesse Laxton living in Jackson County during this time frame.

Aftermath

William Lenzie Laxton’s death certificate from Texas in 1937 states that his parents’ names were Jesse Laxton and Jenny Thompson, suggesting that Jane actually went by Jennie, which would line up better with the entry in Roy’s Scott County in the Civil War.

There was a Jennie Thompson who married Lewis Dolen in 1864 in Scott County. They lived in Wayne County, Ky. when the 1870 census was taken. However, none of Jesse Laxton’s minor children from the 1860 census are found in their household.

If: Jesse Laxton who died in a U.S. prison camp in St. Louis in February 1863 was not the Jesse Laxton from Scott County; and,

If: Jennie Thompson who married Lewis Dolan in Scott County in 1864 was, indeed, Jesse Laxton’s widow, which seems possible if not likely,

Then: What became of Scott County’s Jesse Laxton? Of course, it could very well be that he died on Brimstone Creek in 1864, just as the local history books indicate. There are no records to verify that, but also none to disprove it.

However: It should be pointed out that the 13th Regiment of the Tennessee Cavalry was usually called the 8th Cavalry, so the “two sets of records” could actually be one and the same. And it should be considered that after in August 1864, the regiment marched with Gen. Joseph Wheeler on a raid that took them across the Cumberland Mountains. There are no records of a skirmish on Brimstone Creek in 1864, but the coincidences are interesting, nonetheless.