Naval Career
Having received his commission, Jackson served as assistant inspector of ordnance and then inspector of ordnance at the Midvale Steel Works, then drew sea duty aboard the torpedo boat Cushing and monitor Puritan. In 1897, he married the daughter of Rear Admiral William T. Sampson, who would achieve fame a year later at the Battle of Santiago Bay. He won the annual essay contest administered by the United States Naval Institute in 1900.
He served aboard the torpedo boat Foote during the Spanish-American War, followed by duty aboard the torpedo boat Gwin and three years with the gunboat Nashville. In 1903 he returned to the Naval Academy as an instructor in the Department of English and Law, concluding his tour in 1905 by commanding the protected cruiser Atlanta during midshipman training missions. He was navigator of the armored cruiser Colorado from 1905 to 1907 and executive officer from 1907 to 1908. From 1908 to 1910, he was in charge of the Naval Proving Ground at Indian Head, Maryland.
In 1910 he sailed to the Far East for shore duty at Naval Station Cavite. In 1911 he went to sea as commanding officer of the protected cruiser USS Albany, then as commanding officer of the gunboat Helena, in which role he also served as senior officer in command of the gunboats of the Yangtze River Patrol during the Chinese Revolution. He returned to the United States in 1912 for another tour at the Naval Academy, followed by duty with the General Board from 1913 to 1915 and command of the battleship Virginia in 1915.
In June 1917, following the United States entry into World War I, he was dispatched to Paris as special representative from the Navy Department to the French Ministry of Marine, then served as naval attaché in Paris until after the Armistice in November 1918, when he returned to the United States to report to the Office of Naval Intelligence. In 1919, as senior officer for the U.S. Naval Forces in Bermuda, he commanded the Azores detachment of the Atlantic Fleet that stood guard for the Navy flying boat NC-4 on its historic first trans-Atlantic crossing by an aircraft.
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