Eber D. Jackson was born in June of 1833 in Seneca County, Ohio, the son of Connecticut native Friend David Jackson (1798-1863) and New York native Betsey Curtiss (1797-1857).
By 1840 David (generally known as “Friend D.”) was living in Northfield, Summit County, Ohio. David and his family moved from Ohio to Michigan and by Eber was working s a farm laborer and living with his family in Venice, Shiawassee County; the family was still living in Shiawassee County by the time Betsey died in 1857.
Eber married Michigan native Mary Lemunyon 1839-1912), probably in Shiawassee County, and they had at least one child: Charles (b. 1859).
By 1860 Eber was working as a laborer and sawyer living with his wife child in Corunna, Shiawassee County. Eber and Mary eventually divorced and she remarried to a Jesse Sebring. (In 1880 Charles and his young wife and baby were living with the Sebrings in Clinton County.)
He stood 5’8” with dark eyes, dark hair and a light complexion and was 27 years old and probably still living in Shiawassee County when he enlisted in Company G on May 13, 1861. He was wounded slightly in the head on May 31, 1862, at Fair Oaks, Virginia, but was apparently soon returned to duty. Sometime in August Jackson suffered a double inguinal hernia and was subsequently hospitalized at Cliffburne hospital in Washington, DC, where he was discharged for his hernia on October 30, 1862.
Eber returned to Shiawassee County and he was living in Caledonia Township in June of 1863 when he registered for the draft (no mention is made of his prior service however). He was living in Shiawassee County where he reentered the service as a Sergeant in Company F, 10th Michigan Cavalry on August 17, 1863, at Caledonia for 3 years, crediting Caledonia, and was mustered on September 2, 1863, at Grand Rapids where the regiment was organized between September 18 and November 18, 1863, when it was mustered into service. It left Michigan for Lexington, Kentucky on December 1, 1863, and participated in numerous operations, mostly in Kentucky and Tennessee throughout the winter of 1863-64. Most of its primary area of operations would eventually be in the vicinity of Strawberry Plains, Tennessee.
He was Commissary Sergeant on October 6, 1864, and at the dismounted camp in Knoxville, Tennessee in April of 1865, probably sick. He was sick at the Brigade hospital in Sweetwater, Tennessee, in July and August, absent sick in September, and, for offense(s) unknown, was reduced to the ranks as private on September 5, 1865, reason(s) unknown. He was honorably discharged (presumably with his regiment) on November 22, 1865, at Detroit.
Even though the regiment returned to Michigan, it is possible that Eber remained in Tennessee after his discharge from the army.
He married Margaret G. Davis (who was unable to read or write) in Knoxville on September 9, 1866; she had just been granted a divorce from her husband, Columbus Carless, in August.
Margaret claimed in 1906 that Eber deserted her sometime after their wedding. She further claimed that Eber had died some years before in the Michigan Soldiers’ Home at Grand Rapids, but there is no record of his ever having been a resident at the Home or a patient in the Home hospital or buried in the Home cemetery.
Eber married Canadian Julia E. (b. 1846) and they had at least one child: Freddie (b. 1870).
In 1870 Eber was working as a carpenter and living with his wife Julia E. and their infant son in Bingham, Clinton County.
Eber was apparently living in Erie, Pennsylvania when he died on April 9, 1871 and was buried in Erie Cemetery, Erie, Pennsylvania, section N-N, C-4 (mistakenly listed on his headstone as having served in the 10th Michigan infantry).
In April of 1906 Margaret applied for a widow’s pension in Tennessee (no. 846541), but the certificate was never granted.
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