The idea, however, has small foundation in fact.
Not a few of her great names are derived from a less romantic source,
and the Confederate general, like many of his neighbours in the
western portion of the State, traced his origin to the Lowlands of
Scotland. An ingenious author of the last century, himself born on
Tweed-side, declares that those Scotch families whose patronymics end
in "son," although numerous and respectable, and descended, as the
distinctive syllable denotes, from the Vikings, have seldom been
pre-eminent either in peace or war. And certainly, as regards the
Jacksons of bygone centuries, the assertion seems justified. The name
is almost unknown to Border history. In neither lay nor legend has it
been preserved; and even in the "black lists" of the wardens, where
the more enterprising of the community were continually proclaimed as
thieves and malefactors, it is seldom honoured with notice. The
omission might be held as evidence that the family was of peculiar
honesty, but, in reality, it is only a proof that it was
insignificant. It is not improbable that the Jacksons were one of the
landless clans, whose only heritages were their rude "peel" towers,
and who, with no acknowledged chief of their own race, followed, as
much for protection as for plunder, the banner of some more powerful
house.
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