Young Jacob attended private schools including Washington and Lee University in Harrisonburg and graduated in its class of 1849/50.

She died on May 22, 1867, aged 38, leaving him with four small children (of whom only Virginia P. Liggett Schuler (1855–1931) survived to adulthood).

He was later promoted to lieutenant, and his family preserved a letter from Turner Ashby praising Liggett's courage.

[6] In 1867, Rockingham County voters elected Liggett and fellow Conservative John C. Woodson to represent them in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1868.

[10] However, Major General John Schofield and the Committee of Nine lobbied newly elected President Ulysses S. Grant to allow Virginia voters to vote on the "obnoxious" anti-Confederate provisions separately.