Captain James Bradford

Captain James Bradford was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1759. He entered the Revolutionary War as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 9th Pennsylvania Regiment on January 15, 1777, and was quickly promoted to 1st Lieutenant in Patton's Continental Regiment in March of that same year. He served as Regimental Quartermaster in 1778 before being captured by the British at the Battle of Monmouth in June of that year. After his exchange, he transferred to the 2nd Continental Artillery on July 21, 1779. He went on to serve as Aide-de-Camp to General Alexander (also known as Lord Stirling) from June to November 1781, and served as Adjutant from August 1782 until June 1783. After the war he remained in service, appointed Captain of the U.S. Artillery in October 1786 and Captain of the Artillery Battalion on September 29, 1789.

Throughout his military career, Bradford was accompanied by a large primate named Jacko, an animal described by contemporaries variously as an orangutan, a baboon, and a large monkey, who served as something of a mascot and companion. Jacko wore a uniform, entertained troops by dancing jigs and swinging from chains in trees, and was by all accounts remarkably well-trained. The animal's existence is confirmed not only by family accounts recorded decades later in Thomas Hinde's letters, but by a January 1, 1792 letter from John Hurt, Chaplain of St. Clair's Army, written to President George Washington just two months after the battle, in which Hurt refers directly to Bradford's "Baboon." Jacko accompanied Bradford throughout his post-war frontier service, including his time at Fort Harmar in Marietta, Ohio.

In 1791, Bradford joined General Arthur St. Clair's campaign into the Northwest Territory, with Jacko still in tow. On the morning of November 4, 1791, the Native American confederacy attacked the encampment on the Wabash River. Bradford was struck by a musket ball that passed through him. Afterward, a fellow surviving officer assisted him in writing his will on the battlefield.

It is presumed that Jacko followed the retreating soldiers back to Fort Jefferson, where, with no one left to care for him, he likely perished from cold and hunger. Tantalizingly, during an archaeological excavation of Fort Jefferson in 1930, excavators discovered a full skeleton with bricks placed carefully above it, though they recorded their uncertainty in their notes with double question marks, writing only "dog??" It may well have been Jacko. Bradford's remains are buried in the mass grave beneath the battlefield monument at Fort Recovery, Ohio.

Sources

Lytle, Richard M. The Soldiers of America's First Army, 1791. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2004.

"General Orders, 7 September 1777." Founders Online. National Archives. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-11-02-0169.

Hinde, Thomas. Letter to Martha Constable, April 1, 1845. Draper Manuscripts. University of Wisconsin.

Hurt, John. Letter to George Washington, January 1, 1792. Referenced in: "Jacko, the Monkey Soldier at Fort Jefferson." Daily Advocate and Early Bird News, May 13, 2023. https://www.dailyadvocate.com/2023/05/13/jacko-the-monkey-soldier-at-fort-jefferson/.

McPherson, H. R. Fort Jefferson Excavation Notes, August 16, 1930. Referenced in: "Jacko, the Monkey Soldier at Fort Jefferson." My County Link, February 19, 2025. https://mycountylink.com/jacko-the-monkey-soldier-at-fort-jefferson/.