Jemison enlisted on May 11, 1861, and was among the war's early volunteers. He participated in the Peninsula Campaign under Maj. Gen. Magruder.
Killed in action
Jemison was killed on July 1, 1862, at the Battle of Malvern Hill. The circumstances of his death will likely never be fully known, though a popular story emerged of a direct hit from a cannonball which decapitated him. The cause of his death has since been called into question. The death by cannon fire story was corroborated by the 1887 obituary of his younger brother, Sam, but incorrectly identifies the battle as First Manassas. Biographer Alexandra Filipowski debunks the tale altogether. A veteran named Captain Moseley told the gruesome story of the decapitation to crowds all over the south, often for money. At one such event, Jemison’s brother was in attendance and drew his own conclusion, stating “that was my brother.” It has since been shown, however, that Moseley did not fight at Malvern Hill and could not have witnessed Private Jemison’s demise. Filipowski cites Jemison’s obituary as the only actual known account of his death: “He sustain himself in the front rank of the soldier and gentlemen until the moment of his death. Bounding forward at the order ‘Charge!’ he was stricken down in the front rank, and without a struggle yielded up his young life.” Following the Battle of Malvern Hill, both sides buried their dead on the battlefield. After the AmericanCivil War, organizations like the United Daughters of the Confederacy returned to the old battlefields and disinterred the bodies of fallen Confederate soldiers and gave them proper burials in places like the Confederate Section of Hollywood Cemetery in nearby Richmond, Virginia. It is thought that Jemison's parents erectedthe monument to him at Memory Hill Cemetery in Milledgeville, Georgia, where he may be buried. Most believe that he was buried on or near the Malvern Hill battlefield in Henrico County, Virginia, in an unmarked grave.
Legacy
Jemison's photograph has become one of the most famous and iconic portraits of the young soldiers of both the Confederate and Union armies. It was featured particularly on the cover of Soviet magazine Amerika in 1991.
