James William Jackson (March 6, 1823 – May 24, 1861) was an ardent secessionist and the proprietor of the Marshall House, an inn located in the city of Alexandria, Virginia, at the beginning of the American Civil War.

During the month that Virginia voters contemplated whether to follow the recommendation of the Virginia Secession Convention, President Abraham Lincoln and his Cabinet reportedly observed, through field glasses from an elevated spot in Washington, Jackson's large Confederate flag flying atop the Marshall House inn in Alexandria, across the Potomac River.

[1] One federal regiment was the famously flamboyant 11th New York Zouave Infantry, led by Col. Elmer Ellsworth, who was a close friend of Lincoln.

[9] In 1999, sociologist and historian James W. Loewen noted in his book Lies Across America that the Sons of Confederate Veterans had placed a bronze plaque on the side of a Holiday Inn that had been constructed on the former site of the Marshall House.

[10] Adam Goodheart further discussed the incident and the plaque (which was then within a blind arch near a corner of a Hotel Monaco) in his 2011 book 1861: The Civil War Awakening.

[11] The plaque called Jackson the "first martyr to the cause of Southern Independence" and said he "was killed by federal soldiers while defending his property and personal rights ... in defence of his home and the sacred soil of his native state".

Not in the excitement of battle, but coolly and for a great principle, he laid down his life, an example to all, in defence of his home and the sacred soil of his native state.