Built in the 1820s as a coastal defense system, Fort Jackson was designed to repel a foreign invasion like the country had suffered in the War of 1812. History had other ideas.

Sarah H. Giboney, widow of War of 1812 veteran Andrew Giboney, was Cape Girardeau’s last known connection to the war’s pensioners, her life spanning local history, hardship and remarkable resilience.

After the war, Jackson moved to Tennessee and conducted a political career, but by 1812, he was back in the military. Jackson actually spent most of the War of 1812 fighting not the British, but ...