The Early life of Jacob Featherston, Pre-1921
*A lot of head-canon ideas. Feel free to agree or disagree with this fan-version of Featherston's early years.
For many decades after the death of Jacob Featherston on July 7th, 1944, not much was accurately known about him before his rise to power. Interviews done with major and minor members of the Confederate Freedom Party revealed contradictory narratives based on what they were told from either Featherston or other people. Few knew the exact date and location of his birth, rumors swirled about the identity of his family and, for a time, the only undisputed documentation that existed was Featherston’s service in the Confederate Army during the First Great War. In his autobiography/manifesto,
Over Open Sights, Featherston gave some details about his life before the First Great War, but could not be corroborated by independent review. Beginning in the 1940’s through 1960’s, research into the documentation made by former Confederate States government officials was collected and evaluated. At the end of the 20th Century and the beginning of the 21st Century, de-classified information from the U.S. government was released to the public, giving SGW historians and ordinary people a more accurate, but not complete, report on the life, rise & fall, and death of the most evil man who has ever lived.
FEATHERSTON FAMILY
The earliest known ancestor of Jacob Featherston was a man named Henry Featherstone, who married Elizabeth Marshall. They had one son named Charles Featherston, born on December 6th, 1771 in the British colony of Virginia and died on November 25th, 1852 in Union Georgia.
Charles Featherston married Lucy Pitts and had nine children, the youngest was a veteran of the War of Secession and a Confederate Mississippi senator named Winfield Scott “Old Swet” Featherston, who was born on August 8th, 1820 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee and died on May 28th, 1891 in Holly Springs, Mississippi.
“Old Swet” Featherston had three siblings; all of which died before 1890. He also had a total of six children, four of which survived beyond their childhood years. The survivors were Winfield J. Featherston (1864-1899), Elise Featherston (1869-1934?), and Eloise Featherston (1878-1945).
Image of Confederate Senator Winfield Scott Featherston
Initially involved in the slavery business, Winfield J. Featherston’s time in it was short when the Confederacy began to manumit their slaves in 1882. Contrary to Jacob Featherston’s assertion that his father was just an overseer, records indicate that his immediate family was involved in the selling and buying of slaves. The loss of the slavery business forced the family, among many other political families at the time, to lose a grand fortune and fell into variable levels of poverty. It is not known why Jacob Featherston lied about his father’s occupation, until a letter written by one his aunts, Elise, revealed that she did not like the idea of him lying to the public to elicit sympathy for the loss of his father’s business. Elise Featherston was never seen again since her disappearance in the 1930’s and the letter was discovered among the ruins of Featherston’s presidential office.
Postcard from Richmond, Virginia, capital of the Confederacy, late 1800's-early 1900's
After manumission had occurred, 18-year-old Winfield J. Featherston moved to Virginia permanently and settled in Richmond for job opportunities. During his time in Richmond, he began a physical relationship with Clare Pole (1866-1898), the daughter of a shopkeeper for whom he worked for. The couple did not marry out of love, but it was done to please their families after Clare Pole became pregnant at a young age. Despite having an influential family member in the Confederate Congress, Winfield J. never sought financial assistance from his family. A few months before her death, Featherston’s second aunt, Eloise Featherston, was interviewed by U.S. officials and said there existed a familial dysfunctionality fueled by financial hardship, alcoholism, and criminality. Due to this, Winfield J. did not want to depend on his family in order to get by, eventually becoming disconnected from the rest of them.
EARLY YEARS
Childhood and education
Earliest Known Image of Jacob Featherston as an infant, ca. 1886
The man who would be known as “Jake the Snake” was born with the full name of Jacob Winfield Scott Featherston. Featherston was the only child of Clare Pole and Winfield J. Featherston. His two middle names were given to him in honor of his grandfather. Winfield J. did have some admiration and respect for his father and believed that his name might help him find success in the Confederacy.
The date of Featherston’s birth was believed to be some time during the 1870’s based on personal entries written by Captain J.E.B. Stuart III, a direct descendant of General J.E.B. Stuart from the War of Secession. The captain described a conversation with then-Sergeant Featherston when he mentioned himself to be a young boy during the early 1880’s. However, a birth certificate was discovered that showed his date of birth to be Wednesday, March 3rd, 1886 in Richmond, Virginia. It is not exactly known why Featherston lied about his age, but
Amos Mizell, a member of the Tin Hats until it was engulfed by the Confederate Freedom Party, claimed Featherston told him in a private conversation that he wanted to be perceived as an older gentleman for the 1921 Confederate Presidential Election. Historians found it unusual that he told Captain Stuart III a completely different story well before his interest in politics.
According to Featherston in
Over Open Sights, his relationship with his parents was poor. His father’s lack of finding a stable job caused him to become bitter and angry. While he sometimes physically abused his son when drunk, Featherston noted that he didn’t care much about raising him. His mother, however, was no better. Jacob Featherston’s mother was unsympathetic and would emotionally and physically abuse his son from perceived and real disobedience from him. There was no apparent love between them. After his mother’s suicide in 1898, he would later remark that while he respected his father, he hated his mother. Featherston’s father would eventually die in a drunken fight near a bar sometime in 1899. These negative experiences with his parents deeply affected his inability to form permanent relationships with other people. He was sent to live with his Aunt Elise, who also lived near Richmond. In one of the few instances of his father giving him advice when he was alive, Featherston was told that in order to escape a perpetual life of poverty, he should join the Confederate Army and live off the government. At the time, Featherston said in his book that he rejected the idea and wanted to become a writer once he completed his required conscripted service.
Photograph of a young Gus Kubrick, the only friend Featherston ever had
Featherston attended school run by a Baptist community and was noted by his teachers to be a difficult child who was often disciplined for his angry outbursts and occasional disobedience. Even though he was a loner for most of his life, he was able to obtain at least one childhood friend by the name of Gus Kubrick. Kubrick was a Confederate-born citizen of Polish-Austrian-Romanian descent. In a book written by Kubrick after the Second Great War, Kubrick claimed that he and Featherston had common literary interests and would often hang out together during and after school. He described Featherston as being, in many ways, polar opposites. While he loved and did well in school and practiced his religious faith, Featherston hated being in school, did poorly and would often avoid praying. Kubrick hated history, while Featherston was enamored by it, especially Confederate history.
Adolescence
Photograph of a younger Featherston, ca. 1900
As Featherston and Kubrick grew older, Kubrick would mention that Featherston had a peculiar eccentricity that was uncommon. Featherston showed no romantic feelings toward anyone or anything. When the topic of girls came up during their young adolescent years, Featherston showed indifference toward them. Kubrick mentioned that young Featherston’s peers in school and outside of it would often bully him by accusing him of being a homosexual. However, he noted that Featherston never fought back or denied it. Regardless if it was true or not, Kubrick thought it was very unusual for Featherston to ignore his bullies’ words at such a young age. It is generally believed that Featherston did not have any type of sexual orientation; he was an asexual.
During the last years of high school, Featherston’s talent for writing stories was shown to his teachers. While most of the early stories he wrote have been lost to history, Featherston wrote mostly fantasy involving medieval settings in Britain and France. Kubrick often tried to help him by convincing him to submit his work to publishing companies.
Early adulthood in Mississippi and Tennessee
Rare Photograph of Jacob Featherston during a family reunion in Mississippi, 1911
During his required military service in 1904, Featherston continued to write many short stories and poetry. He was assigned in the Army of Northern Virginia and was trained to become an artilleryman in the 1st Richmond Howitzers, Battery C. His superiors noted that he was a good soldier who steadily improved in discipline. After his service ended in 1906, Featherston kept in contact with Kubrick and began submitting his manuscripts to magazines and other literary agencies, but his work was judged to be poorly written. Featherston’s lack of success as a writer and not being able to afford to go to university compelled him to find work in other parts of the Confederacy.
Cumberland Mountains, close to where Featherston worked as a miner
From 1907-1913, Featherston travelled between Tennessee and Mississippi. Unlike his father, he wanted to know his family and tried to maintain a close relationship. His aunt Eloise lived in Holly Springs, while most of his distant cousins lived in Eastern Tennessee. These six years of Featherston’s life are not well-documented to historians. What is known is that he first lived with his cousins and worked with them as coal miners in the Cumberland Mountains region; a job he hated because he regarded it as “nigger work”. Sometime on or after 1910, he visited his extended family in Mississippi. Based on Eloise Featherston’s interview with the U.S. government, she heard that Featherston stayed in Mississippi for less than three years when he discovered that his grandfather wrote his father (Winfield J.) and his family out of the family will. Despite being told that the Featherston family had little money, he realized that his grandfather had enough to support several of his grandchildren, including himself. Furious at being denied funding for his dreams of becoming a writer, Featherston returned to Richmond with his Aunt Elise, where he found work as a border guard between the states of Confederate Virginia and Maryland. U.S. government authorities after the war have not been able to find the alleged will. A lack of verification on the will is caused in part by the liquidation of the majority of Featherston’s family during his presidency.
FIRST GREAT WAR
Photograph of the First Richmond Howitzers with a French 75mm field gun (right). Sergeant Featherston is on the left
When the First Great War began in 1914, Featherston was assigned to his old artillery unit near the Potomac river. During this time, he met Major Clarence Potter and Captain J.E.B. Stuart III. He also began to know Black servants, such as Perseus, Nero, and Pompey, the latter of which grew up into servitude with Captain Stuart III. Featherston admitted that he had no murderous rage at the time against Blacks and even asked for their help to reload an artillery cannon. He mentioned a scene in
Over Open Sights where he played card games with the servants attached to his military unit. Nevertheless, Featherston was a typical Confederate citizen of his time: Minimally racist, but willing to work alongside Blacks as long as boundaries were acknowledged.
Photograph of Communist Black Confederates rebelling in Richmond, 1915
Before the Red Rebellion of 1915, an investigation headed by Clarence Potter was done to weed out Black Communists from the Confederacy. When questioned by Potter as to the conduct of their Black workers, Featherston noted nothing out of the ordinary. Sometime later before the beginning of 1915, Featherston overheard a conversation between Pompey and Perseus, when the former approached the latter. In this conversation, Featherston heard words and phrases from Pompey that were related to Socialist ideas. Words such as “revolution”, “Black republic”, and “dialectical” made Featherston suspicious. He reported Pompey to Clarence Potter but Captain Stuart III refused to believe that his servant would be a Red. When Pompey was initially taken away for questioning, Stuart III asked his father to interfere and return him back. After the Red Rebellion began, Featherston was proven right about Pompey. Captain Stuart III would have been court-martialed, but he led a suicidal charge in Pennsylvania, an event that Featherston himself witnessed. During that same battle, he claimed to have shot retreating Black soldiers that were allowed to serve by President Semmes in a fit of rage due to his trench being overrun by Union soldiers.
General J.E.B. Stuart, Jr. in civilian clothing, late 19th Century
After the war, he was informed by Major Clarence Potter that both would not be promoted and that their career in the military was over. While Potter accepted his fate, Featherston knew that it was a type of payback by Stuart III’s father, General Stuart, Jr., for his indirect role in his son’s death. The combined incidents of the Red Rebellion, the Confederate loss of the First Great War, and his prevention of being promoted in the Confederate army instilled in Featherston an uncontrollable rage and firm determination to recreate the Confederacy in his own image and destroy his enemies: The Whig-led Confederate Government, the United States, and the Black Confederates. At least one (if not two) of these enemies would survive Featherston thirty years later.
Featherston during the 1921 Confederate Presidential Election
Sources:
1) https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/111334974/charles-featherston
2) https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/49359815/james-ewell_brown-stuart
3) https://www.militaer-wissen.de/canon-de-75-modele-1897/?lang=fr
4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Richmond,_Virginia
5) Gus Kubrick is a Confederate version of August Kubizek