Collections

This collection documents five generations of the Jones family, a Virginia military family, through commissions, correspondence, printed military orders, and personal artifacts. Most of the materials consists of military commissions, appointments, and presidential correspondence directed to Roger Jones (1789–1852), the longest-serving Adjutant General of the United States Army, with the bound commission volume documenting his career from his initial 1809 Marine Corps appointment through his death in office in 1852. A one page autograph letter from Edmund P. Gaines (1777-1849) to Roger Jones, dated March 2, 1828 and postmarked in Washington City is included. The letter commends Jones for "his untiring vigilant gallantry and meritorious service in the Battle for which it was granted to his General and constant friend." On the verso of the page is a written indication of Jones's receipt of the letter the same day. Gaines was a senior commander in the United States Army and served in the War of 1812, the Seminole Wars, the Black Hawk Wars, and the later Mexican-American War. Jones served under Gaines during the British attempt to retake Fort Erie during the War of 1812. Other named recipients of commissions include the Revolutionary-era patriarch Catesby Jones (c. 1730–1800) (Virginia militia commissions, 1785–1794); his sons Roger Jones and Thomas ap Catesby Jones (1790–1858), U.S. Navy commodore; Roger Jones's sons William Page Jones (1820–1841), Catesby ap Roger Jones (1821–1877), Walter Jones, and Charles Lucian Jones (1835–1920); and the third-generation Catesby ap Lucian Jones, who received four officer's appointments in the U.S. Coast Artillery Corps, 1917–1918.