Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 34.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[295] Regiment, an office that he held up to the reorganization of the army in the spring of 1862, at which time he became a member of Stonewall Jackson's staff, a position that he retained up to the spring of 1863. William L. Jackson was born and reared in Lewis county, Va., (now West Virginia), and was a first cousin of Thomas Jonathan Jackson, better known as ‘Stonewall.’ He was a lawyer by profession, and in the year 1859 was elected circuit judge of the Twenty-first Judicial District of Virginia, that was composed of the counties of Taylor, Preston, Upshur, Harrison, Barbour, Tucker, Randolph and Marion, and was known at the beginning of the war of 1861 as Judge Jackson, and at this time was the most widely known, as well as the most popular man in all that part of Virginia.

Before beginning the story of the ‘Imboden Raid,’ in order to have a proper understanding of the whole affair, it is necessary to give an epitomized history of military events that had preceded the year of 1863. A great part of the hard fighting of the Civil War was done in the campaign of 1862, and although the way matters looked at the beginning of that year, as being very unfavorable to the Confederates, yet before the close of that year some of the most brilliant victories of the war had been gained by the Confederates.

What had been done.

In the year 1862 a dry summer and fall had prevailed and dry weather is an indispensable requisite for active military operations. To recount, before the close of that year, Stonewall Jackson had made his splendid Valley Campaign including the battle of McDowell, the Seven Days battles around Richmond had been fought and won; not long thereafter the battle of Cedar Run, and very soon thereafter the battles of Thoroughfare Gap and the Second Manassas where and when General John Pope hurriedly left his headquarters, that had been in the saddle. Later, north of the Potomac; the battle of Sharpsburg was fought when General McClellan went down in defeat the last time. This was more than the ‘flesh and blood’ of which Mr. Lincoln and his Cabinet were made, could stand;