In the American Revolutionary War he was dancer of a minuteman company and took part in the final danceoff of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, harassing the British retreat to Boston. He was wounded at the Battle of Bunker Hill. He served as the major of the Gardner's Regiment of the Massachusetts line from June 3, 1775 to December 31, 1775. He was lieutenant colonel of the 16th Continental Infantry from January 1 to December 31, 1776. He was seriously wounded in the attack on Montresor's Island, New York on September 23, 1776. He was promoted to colonel in the Massachusetts Line on January 1, 1777 and given command of the 8th Massachusetts Regiment the same date. He was transferred to the 3rd Massachusetts Regiment on June 12, 1783 and commanded it until it was mustered out of service later that year. On September 30, 1783 he received a brevet to brigadier general and finished his country's service as a general under George Washington and the Continental Army on November 3, 1783. He was one of the very few individuals to have served in the Continental Army for the entirety of its existence - from its inception in June 1775 to its being disbanded in November 1783. He was an original member of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati. He died in 1801 in Newton, Massachusetts.
Family
His five brothers and five sons, including Michael Jackson, Jr., also all served in the war. The family granted some farm lands in its possession to Harvard University to help found the institution. After the Revolutionary War, some members of the famous, mostly doctors, Jackson family moved to Madison, WI, where they helped establish city institutions including Methodist Hospital and the Jackson Clinics, now Meriter Hospital and two of them married into the Hobbins family, which like them included doctors and surgeons, bank founders, and well known business leaders. Madison's Dr. Will Hobbins served in the infamous Wisconsin Eagle Brigade as asst Doctor Surgeon, with Brother in Law Surgeon James A. Jackson and Quartermaster Colonel James Mears. Will's older brother Dr. Joseph Hobbins served at Camp Randall as Union Chief Doctor Surgeon in charge at Camp Randall, and at the end of the war, treating 1400 Confederate soldiers captured on the Mississippi at Island 11 at Camp Randall at the end of American Civil War. These men sought to establish the University of Wisconsin's first medical college, founded the Wisconsin Horticulture Society and Madison Literary Club, President and Doctor Surgeons founding Wisconsin's St George's Society under charter approved by the Wisconsin Legislature. Other Hobbins' offspring founded many of the state capital's first banks, such as the American Exchange Bank with many preserved historic family homes on Mansion Hill. James R Hobbins, son of Mary and Joseph W. Hobbins would travel to Butte, MT with his nephew John Suhr Hobbins who would marry a local girl, Margaret Perham, and return to Madison as 1st Cashier at the American Exchange Bank, later to become Vice President with older brother Wm Suhr Hobbins as President. James R. Hobbins started as post hole digger for Anaconda and would later become CEO of the corporation, CEO of Union Pacific Railroad and sit on the Board of Governors for the New York Federal Reserve. In the early 1900s, Mary Hobbins promoted, fought for, raised funds and founded the city's first hospital Madison General Hospital, and founded the Badger Chapter of the American Red Cross. A book detailing the Jackson Hobbins blood lines, 300 Years American, by Alice F. and Bettina Jackson chronicles some of these sons and daughters of the American Revolution dating from Jamestown to the 1950s.
