Richard H. Jackson

Richard Harrison Jackson (May 10, 1866 – October 2, 1971) was a four-star admiral in the United States Navy. Originally cashiered from the Navy for poor grades at the U.S. Naval Academy, he was commissioned ensign by special act of Congress for his heroism during the 1889 Apia cyclone. He served as commander in chief of the Battle Fleet in 1926 and lived to be 105 years old. Early life He was born on a plantation near Tuscumbia, Alabama, the youngest of seven children of George Moore Jackson and Sarah Cabell Perkins, and was appointed by Alabama Congressman Joseph Wheeler to the U.S. Naval Academy, which he entered on June 4, 1883. Jackson graduated from the Academy in 1887 and was immediately sent to sea as a passed cadet, first aboard the protected cruiser Boston, then aboard the wooden-hulled screw steamer Trenton. In those days, Academy graduates were required to complete two years of satisfactory sea duty before being awarded an ensign's commission. However, due to an 1882 statute limiting the number of available naval commissions, there were not enough vacancies in the service to retain all of the Academy's graduates. Jackson's poor grades placed him near the bottom of his graduating class, so he was to be cashiered from the Navy upon completing his sea duty. While awaiting his discharge, Jackson was serving aboard Trenton in Samoa when it was wrecked by the 1889 Apia cyclone on March 16, 1889. As the ship had been caught with no steam in its boilers, crewmen were ordered to form a line along the deck and spread their coats to form a makeshift sail. Jackson led a group of sailors into the rigging where they spread their coats to increase the sail area, at significant hazard to their lives. This desperate measure successfully propelled Trenton out of danger long enough to help rescue the ship's company of the similarly wrecked Vandalia, before both crews were compelled to abandon ship.