Stonewall Jackson
Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson (
January 20 or
January 21[Robertson, p. 7. The physician, Dr. James McCally, recalls delivering baby Thomas just before midnight on January 20, but the family has insisted since then that he was born in the first minutes of January 21. The later date is the one generally acknowledged in biographies.],
1824 –
May 10,
1863) was a
Confederate general during the
American Civil War. He is most famous for his audacious
Valley Campaign of 1862 and as a corps commander in the
Army of Northern Virginia under General
Robert E. Lee. He was shot accidentally by his own troops at
Chancellorsville and died of complications from an amputated arm a few days thereafter.
Military historians consider Jackson to be one of the most gifted tactical commanders in
United States history. His Valley Campaign and his envelopment of the
Union Army right wing at Chancellorsville are studied worldwide even today as examples of innovative and bold leadership. He excelled as well at the
First Battle of Bull Run (where he received his famous nickname),
Second Bull Run,
Antietam, and
Fredericksburg. Jackson was not universally successful as a commander, however, as displayed by his weak and confused efforts during the
Seven Days Battles around
Richmond in 1862. His death was a severe setback for the Confederacy, affecting not only its military prospects, but the morale of its army and the general public; as Jackson lay dying, General
Robert E. Lee stated, "He has lost his left arm; I have lost my right arm."
Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson was of
Scots-Irish descent, and the grandson of John Jackson and Elizabeth
Cummins.
John was born in
Coleraine,
County Londonderry, in
Northern Ireland. He emigrated to the
Province of Maryland in 1748 and moved to the
Colony and Dominion of Virginia in 1758. He participated in the
American Revolutionary War, fighting in the
Battle of Kings Mountain on
October 7 1780. He was a
lieutenant of the
Virginia Militia after 1787. Elizabeth was born in
London and raised by an unwed aunt. She was her aunt's only heir, inheriting one thousand
pounds sterling. She used this sum to emigrate to Maryland and buy 3,000
acres (12 km²) of land. She is said to have successfully defended her land from attacks by
Indians.
They had four children. Their second son Edward Jackson (
March 1 1759 –
December 25 1828) was married twice. He and his first wife, Mary Haddan, had six children. His second wife, Elizabeth Weatherholt Brake, presented him with an additional nine children. Jonathan Jackson was his third son by his first marriage.
Early childhood
Stonewall Jackson was the third child of
Julia Beckwith (née Neale) Jackson (1798 – 1831) and Jonathan Jackson (1790 – 1826), an
attorney. Both of Jackson's parents were natives of
Virginia. The family already had two young children and were living in
Clarksburg, in what is now
West Virginia. This is where their third child, Thomas, was born. He was named for his maternal grandfather.
Two years later, Jackson's father and sister Elizabeth (age six) died of
typhoid fever. Jackson's mother gave birth to Thomas's sister Laura Ann the next day. Julia Jackson thus was widowed at 28 and was left with much debt and three young children (including the newborn). She sold the family's possessions to pay the debts. She declined family charity and moved into a small rented one-room house. Julia took in sewing and taught school to support herself and her three young children for about four years.
In 1830, Julia Neale Jackson remarried. Her new husband, Blake Woodson
[Robertson, p. 8.], an attorney, did not like his stepchildren. There were continuing financial problems. The following year, after giving birth to Thomas's half-brother, she died of complications, leaving her three older children orphaned. Julia was buried in an unmarked grave in a homemade coffin in Westlake Cemetery along the
James River and Kanawha Turnpike in
Fayette County within the corporate limits of present-day
Ansted, West Virginia.
 |
Jackson's Mill, owned by Cummins Jackson. |
Working and teaching at Jackson's Mill
Jackson was seven years old when his mother died. He and his sister Laura Ann were sent to live with their paternal uncle,
Cummins Jackson, who owned a grist mill in
Jackson's Mill (near present-day
Weston in
Lewis County in central
West Virginia). Cummins Jackson was strict with Thomas, who looked up to Cummins as a
schoolteacher. His older brother, Warren, went to live with other relatives on his mother's side of the family, but he later died of
tuberculosis in 1841 at the age of 20.
Jackson helped around his uncle's farm, tending sheep with the assistance of a
sheepdog, driving teams of
oxen and helping harvest the fields of wheat and corn. Formal education was not easily obtained, but he attended school when and where he could. Much of Jackson's education was self-taught. He would often sit up at night reading by the flickering light of burning pine knots. The story is told that Thomas once made a deal with one of his uncle's
slaves to provide him with pine knots in exchange for reading lessons. This was in violation of a law in Virginia that forbade teaching a slave to read or write which had been enacted following the infamous and bloody
Nat Turner incident in
Southampton County. Nevertheless, Jackson secretly taught the slave to read, as he had promised. In his later years at Jackson's Mill, Thomas was a schoolteacher.
West Point
In 1842, Jackson was appointed to the
United States Military Academy at
West Point,
New York. Because of his inadequate schooling, he had difficulty with the entrance examinations and began his studies at the bottom of his class. As a student, he had to work harder than most cadets to absorb lessons. However, displaying a dogged determination that was to characterize his life, he became one of the hardest working cadets in the academy. Thomas Jackson graduated 17th out of 59 students in the Class of 1846. It was said by his peers that if they had stayed there another year, he would have graduated first.
Jackson began his
U.S. Army career in the 1st U.S. Artillery Regiment and was sent to fight in the
Mexican War from 1846 to 1848. Again, his unusual strength of character emerged. During the assault on
Chapultepec Castle, he refused what he felt was a "bad order" to withdraw his troops. Confronted by his superior, he explained his rationale, claiming withdrawal was more hazardous than continuing his overmatched artillery duel. His judgment proved correct, and a relieving brigade was able to exploit the advantage Jackson had broached. In contrast, he obeyed what he also felt was a "bad order" when he raked a civilian throng with artillery fire after the Mexican authorities failed to surrender Mexico City at the hour demanded by the U.S. forces.
[Robertson, p. 69.] The former episode, and later aggressive action against the retreating Mexican army, earned him field promotion to the
brevet rank of major.
He served at the
Siege of Veracruz and the battles of
Contreras,
Chapultepec, and
Mexico City, eventually earning two brevet promotions. It was in Mexico that Jackson first met
Robert E. Lee.
In the spring of 1851, Thomas Jackson accepted a newly created teaching position at the
Virginia Military Institute (VMI), in
Lexington, Virginia. He became Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy and Instructor of Artillery. Jackson's teachings are still used at VMI today because they are military essentials that are timeless, to wit: discipline, mobility, assessing the enemy's strength and intentions while attempting to conceal your own, and the efficacy of artillery combined with an infantry assault. However, despite the quality of his work, he was not popular as a teacher. The students mocked his apparently stern, religious nature and his eccentric traits. In 1856, a group of alumni attempted to have Jackson removed from his position
[Virginia Military Institute Archives: Stonewall Jackson FAQ].
Little as he was known to the white inhabitants of Lexington, Jackson was revered by many of the
African-Americans in town, both slave and free. He was instrumental in the organization in 1855 of Sunday school classes for blacks at the Presbyterian Church. The pastor, Dr. William Spottswood White, described the relationship between Jackson and his Sunday afternoon students: "In their religious instruction he succeeded wonderfully. His discipline was systematic and firm, but very kind. ... His servants reverenced and loved him, as they would have done a brother or father. ... He was emphatically the black man's friend." He addressed his students by name and they in turn referred to him affectionately as "Marse Major."
[Robertson, p. 169.] Jackson's family owned six slaves in the late 1850s. Three (Hetty, Cyrus, and George, a mother and two teenage sons) were received as a wedding present. Albert requested that Jackson purchase him and allow him to work for his freedom; he was employed as a waiter in one of the Lexington hotels and Jackson rented him to VMI. Amy also requested that Jackson purchase her from a public auction and she served the family as a cook and housekeeper. The sixth, Emma, was a four-year-old orphan with a learning disability, accepted by Jackson from an aged widow and presented to his second wife, Anna, as a welcome-home gift.
[Robertson, pp. 191-92.] James Robertson wrote about Jackson's view on slavery:
[Robertson, p. 191.]While an instructor at VMI, in 1853, Thomas Jackson married Elinor "Ellie" Junkin, whose father was president of
Washington College (later Washington and Lee University) in Lexington. Ellie died during childbirth and the child, a son, died immediately afterward.
After a tour of Europe, Jackson married again, in 1857. Mary Anna Morrison was from North Carolina, where her father was the first president of
Davidson College. They had a daughter named Mary Graham on
April 30 1858, but the baby died less than a month later. Another daughter was born in 1862, shortly before her father's death. The Jacksons named her Julia Laura, after his mother and sister. Jackson purchased the only house he ever owned while in Lexington. Built in 1801, this brick town house at 8 East Washington St., was purchased by Jackson in 1859 where he lived for two years before being called to serve in the Confederacy. Jackson was never to return home.In November 1859, at the request of the governor of Virginia, Major
William Gilham led a contingent of the VMI Cadet Corps to
Charles Town to provide an additional military presence at the execution by hanging on
December 2 1859 of militant abolitionist
John Brown following his raid on the federal arsenal at
Harpers Ferry. Major Jackson was placed in command of the artillery, consisting of two
howitzers manned by 21 cadets.
In 1861, as the
American Civil War broke out, Jackson became a drill master for some of the many new recruits in the
Confederate Army. On
April 27 1861, Virginia Governor
John Letcher ordered
Colonel Jackson to take command at Harpers Ferry, where he would assemble and command the famous "
Stonewall Brigade", consisting of the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 27th, and 33rd Virginia infantry regiments. All of these units were from the
Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia. He was promoted to
brigadier general on
June 17.
First Bull Run
Jackson rose to prominence and earned his nickname at the
First Battle of Bull Run (known by
Southerners as First
Manassas) in July 1861. As the Confederate lines began to crumble under heavy Union assault, Jackson's brigade provided crucial reinforcements on Henry House Hill. Brig. Gen.
Barnard Elliott Bee, Jr., exhorted his own troops to reform by shouting, "There stands Jackson like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians!" There is some controversy over Bee's statement and intent. At the time during the battle Jackson and his command were not engaged in the battle and some interpret the comment to have meant that Jackson was not moving (into the battle as Bee felt he should have been) and the comment was meant to be more a criticism than a compliment. Bee did not have an opportunity to clarify the matter as he was killed immediately following his statement. It seems unlikely, however, that General Bee would have used the admonition, "Rally behind the Virginians!", if his previous words were meant as a criticism of Jackson's failure to move forward. After the battle Jackson was promoted to
major general (
October 7,
1861) and given command of the Valley District, with headquarters in
Winchester.
Valley Campaign
In the spring of 1862, Union
Major General George B. McClellan's massive
Army of the Potomac was approaching Richmond from the southeast in the
Peninsula Campaign, Maj. Gen.
Irvin McDowell's large corps was poised to hit Richmond from the north, and Maj. Gen.
Nathaniel P. Banks's army was threatening the Shenandoah Valley. Jackson was ordered by Richmond to operate in the Valley to defeat Banks's threat and prevent McDowell's troops from reinforcing McClellan.
Jackson possessed the attributes to succeed against his poorly coordinated and sometimes timid opponents: a combination of great audacity, excellent knowledge and shrewd use of the terrain, and the ability to inspire his troops to great feats of marching and fighting.
The campaign started with a tactical defeat at
Kernstown on
March 23,
1862, when faulty intelligence led him to believe he was attacking a much smaller force than he thought, but it was a strategic victory for the Confederacy, forcing
President Abraham Lincoln to keep Banks's forces in the Valley and McDowell's 30,000-man
corps near
Fredericksburg, subtracting about 50,000 soldiers from McClellan's invasion force. And it was Jackson's only defeat in the Valley.
By adding Maj. Gen.
Richard S. Ewell's large
division and Maj. Gen.
Edward "Allegheny" Johnson's small division, Jackson increased his army to 17,000 men. He was still significantly outnumbered, but attacked portions of his divided enemy individually at
McDowell, defeating both
Brig. Gens. Robert H. Milroy and
Robert C. Schenck. He defeated Banks at
Front Royal and
Winchester, ejecting him from the Valley. Lincoln decided that the defeat of Jackson was an immediate priority (even though Jackson's orders were solely to keep Union forces occupied away from Richmond). They ordered Irvin McDowell to send 20,000 men to Front Royal and Maj. Gen.
John C. Frémont to move to
Harrisonburg. If both forces could converge at Strasburg, Jackson's only escape route up the Valley would be cut.
After a series of maneuvers, Jackson defeated Frémont at
Cross Keys and Brig. Gen.
James Shields at
Port Republic on
June 8 and
June 9. Union forces were withdrawn from the Valley.
It had been a classic military campaign of surprise and maneuver. Jackson pressed his army to travel 646 miles in 48 days of marching and won five significant victories with a force of about 17,000 against a combined foes of 60,000. Stonewall Jackson's reputation for moving his troops so rapidly earned them the
oxymoronic nickname "
foot cavalry". He became the most celebrated soldier in the Confederacy (until he was eventually eclipsed by Lee) and lifted the morale of the Southern public.
Peninsula
McClellan's Peninsula Campaign toward Richmond stalled at the
Battle of Seven Pines on
May 31 and
June 1. After the Valley Campaign ended in mid-June, Jackson and his troops were called to join
Robert E. Lee's
Army of Northern Virginia in defense of the capital. By utilizing a railroad tunnel under the
Blue Ridge Mountains and then transporting troops to
Hanover County on the
Virginia Central Railroad, Jackson and his forces made a surprise appearance in front of McClellan at
Mechanicsville. Reports had last placed Jackson's forces in the Shenandoah Valley; their presence near Richmond added greatly to the Union commander's overestimation of the strength and numbers of the forces before him. This proved a crucial factor in McClellan's decision to re-establish his base at a point many miles downstream from Richmond on the
James River at Harrison's Landing, essentially a retreat that ended the Peninsula Campaign and prolonged the war almost three more years.
Jackson's troops served well under Lee in the series of battles known as the
Seven Days Battles, but Jackson's own performance in those battles is generally considered to be poor. He arrived late at Mechanicsville and inexplicably ordered his men to bivouac for the night within clear earshot of the battle. He was late and disoriented at
Gaines' Mill. He was late again at
Savage's Station, and at
White Oak Swamp, he failed to employ fording places to cross White Oak Swamp Creek, attempting for hours to rebuild a bridge, which limited his involvement to an ineffectual artillery duel and a missed opportunity. At
Malvern Hill, Jackson participated in the futile, piecemeal frontal assaults against entrenched Union infantry and massed artillery and suffered heavy casualties, but this was a problem for all of Lee's army in that ill-considered battle. The reasons for Jackson's sluggish and poorly coordinated actions during the Seven Days are disputed, although a severe lack of sleep after the grueling march and railroad trip from the Shenandoah Valley was probably a significant factor. Both Jackson and his troops were completely exhausted.
Second Bull Run to Fredericksburg
Jackson was now a corps commander under Lee. At the
Second Battle of Bull Run (or the Second Battle of Manassas in the South), he made an aggressive flanking march that seized a supply depot in the Union rear, provoking an attack from Maj. Gen.
John Pope. Pope's army was defeated and retreated to Washington, another Union defeat on the same ground as in 1861. When Lee decided to invade the North in the
Maryland Campaign, Jackson took Harpers Ferry, then hastened to join the rest of the army at
Sharpsburg, Maryland, where they fought McClellan in the
Battle of Antietam. The Confederate forces held their position, but the battle was extremely bloody for both sides, and Lee withdrew the
Army of Northern Virginia back across the
Potomac River, ending the invasion. Before the armies camped for winter, Jackson's Second Corps held off a strong Union assault against the right flank of the Confederate line at the
Battle of Fredericksburg in what became a decisive Confederate victory.
Chancellorsville
At the
Battle of Chancellorsville, the Army of Northern Virginia was faced with a serious threat by the Army of the Potomac and its new commanding general, Major General
Joseph Hooker. General Lee decided to employ a risky tactic to take the initiative and offensive away from Hooker's new southern thrust—he decided to divide his forces. Jackson and his entire corps were sent on an aggressive flanking maneuver to the right of the Union lines. This flanking movement would be one of the most successful and dramatic of the war. While riding with his infantry in a wide berth well south and west of the Federal line of battle, Jackson employed Maj. Gen.
Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry to provide for better reconnaissance in regards to the exact location of the Union right and rear. The results were far better than even Jackson could have hoped for. Lee found the entire right side of the Federal lines in the middle of open field, guarded merely by two guns that faced westward, as well as the supplies and rear encampments. The men were eating and playing games in carefree fashion, completely unaware that an entire Confederate corps was less than a mile away. What happened next is given in Lee's own words:
Jackson immediately returned to his corps and arranged his divisions into a line of battle to charge directly into the oblivious Federal right. The Confederates marched silently until they were merely several hundred feet from the Union position, then released a bloodthirsty cry and full charge. Many of the Federals were captured without a shot fired, the rest were driven into a full rout. Jackson pursued relentlessly back toward the center of the Federal line until dusk.
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The plantation office building where Stonewall Jackson died in Guinea Station, Virginia |
Darkness ended the assault. As Jackson and his staff were returning to camp on
May 2, they were mistaken for a Union cavalry force by a Confederate North Carolina regiment who shouted, "Halt, who goes there?," but fired before evaluating the reply. Jackson was hit by three bullets. He was dropped from his stretcher while being evacuated because of incoming artillery rounds. While in a weakened condition, he was given something to drink. This violates modern day medical practice as a person semi-conscious can easily ingest contaminated material into his lungs that often leads to
pneumonia. Thus, the seeds for Jackson's death by pneumonia were unwittingly planted on the battlefield. Because of his injuries, Jackson's left arm had to be amputated by
Dr. Hunter McGuire. Jackson was moved to Thomas C. Chandler's 740-acre plantation named "Fairfield." He was offered Chandler's home for recovery, but Jackson refused and suggested using Chandler's plantation office building instead. He was thought to be out of harm's way, but unknown to the doctors, he already had classic symptoms of pneumonia, complaining of a sore chest. This soreness was mistakenly thought to be the result of his rough handling in the battlefield evacuation. Jackson died of complications of pneumonia on
May 10. In his delirium, his dying words were, "Let us cross over the river and rest in the shade of the trees." His body was moved to the Governor's Mansion in Richmond for the public to mourn, and he was then moved to be buried in the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery, Lexington, Virginia. However, the arm that was amputated on
May 2 was buried separately by Jackson's chaplain, at the J. Horace Lacy house, "Ellwood", in the Wilderness of
Spotsylvania County, near the field hospital.
Upon hearing of Jackson's death,
Robert E. Lee mourned the loss of both a friend and a trusted commander. The night Lee learned of Jackson's death, he told his cook, "William, I have lost my right arm" (deliberately in contrast to Jackson's left arm) and "I'm bleeding at the heart."
|
"Stonewall" Jackson statue, Manassas Battlefield Park |
Jackson is considered one of the great characters of the Civil War. He was profoundly religious, a deacon in the
Presbyterian Church. He disliked fighting on Sunday, though that did not stop him from doing so. He loved his wife very much and sent her tender letters.
Jackson often wore old, worn-out clothes rather than a fancy uniform, and often looked more like a moth-eaten private than a corps commander. In direct contrast to Lee, Jackson was not a striking figure, particularly since he was not a good horseman and, therefore, rode a staid, dependable horse, rather than a spirited stallion.
A recurring story concerns his love of lemons, which he allegedly gnawed whole to alleviate symptoms of
dyspepsia. However, recent research
[Robertson, p. xi.] has found that none of his contemporaries recorded any unusual lemon habits and Jackson thought of a lemon as a "rare treat ... enjoyed greatly whenever it could obtained from the enemy's camp". He was fond of all fruits, particularly peaches. He held a lifelong belief that one of his arms was longer than the other, and thus usually held the "longer" arm up to equalize his circulation. He was described as a "champion sleeper", even falling asleep with food in his mouth occasionally. He also became noted throughout the Confederate Army for leading his troops in complete circles. It has often been hypothesized that Jackson had
Asperger's Syndrome, for which he is a prime example.
In command, Jackson was extremely secretive about his plans and extremely punctilious about military discipline. This secretive nature did not stand him in good stead with his subordinates, who were often not aware of his overall operational intentions and complained of being left out of key decisions.
The South mourned his death; he was greatly admired there. Many theorists through the years have postulated that if Jackson had lived, Lee might have prevailed at
Gettysburg. Certainly Jackson's iron discipline and brilliant tactical sense were sorely missed, and might well have carried an extremely close-fought battle. He is buried at Lexington, Virginia, near
VMI, in the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery. He is memorialized on
Georgia's
Stone Mountain, in
Richmond on historic
Monument Avenue, and in many other places.
Lee could trust Jackson with deliberately non-detailed orders that conveyed Lee's overall objectives, what modern doctrine calls the "end state." This was because Jackson had a talent for understanding Lee's sometimes unstated goals and Lee trusted Jackson with the ability to take whatever actions were necessary to implement his end state requirements. Many of Lee's subsequent corps commanders did not have this disposition. At
Gettysburg, this resulted in lost opportunities. Thus, after the Federals retreated to the heights south of town, Lee sent one of his new corps commander,
Richard S. Ewell, discretionary orders that the heights (
Cemetery Hill and
Culp's Hill) be taken "if practicable." Without Jackson's intuitive grasp of both Lee as well as sudden tactical opportunities, Ewell chose not to attempt the assault, and this failure is considered by historians to be the greatest missed opportunity of the battle.
After the war, Jackson's wife and young daughter Julia moved from Lexington to North Carolina. Mary Anna Jackson wrote two books about her husband's life, including some of his letters. She never remarried, and was known as the "Widow of the Confederacy", living until 1915. His daughter Julia married, and bore children, but she died of typhoid fever at the age of 26 years.
A former Confederate soldier who admired Jackson, Captain
Thomas R. Ranson of
Staunton, Virginia, also remembered the tragic life of Jackson's mother. Years after the War, he went to the tiny mountain hamlet of
Ansted in
Fayette County, West Virginia, and had a marble marker placed over the unmarked grave of
Julia Neale Jackson in Westlake Cemetery, to make sure that the site was not lost forever.
West Virginia's Stonewall Jackson State Park is named in his honor. Nearby, at Stonewall Jackson's historical childhood home, his Uncle's grist mill is the centerpiece of a historical site at the Jackson's Mill Center for Lifelong Learning and State 4-H Camp. The facility, located near
Weston, serves as a special campus for
West Virginia University and the WVU Extension Service.
The
United States Navy submarine
U.S.S. Stonewall Jackson (SSBN 634), commissioned in 1964, was named for him. The words "Strength—Mobility" are emblazoned on the ship's banner, words taken from letters written by General Jackson. It was the third U.S. Navy ship named for him. The submarine was decommissioned in 1995. During
World War II, the Navy named a
Liberty Ship the SS
T.J. Jackson in his honor.
The state of Virginia honors Jackson's birthday on
Lee-Jackson Day, a state holiday observed as such since 1904. It is currently observed on the Friday preceding the third Monday in January.
Stonewall Jackson appears on the CSA $500 bill (7th Issue,
February 17,
1864).
Jackson is a character in
Harry Turtledove's
Timeline-191 series of
alternate history novels.
*
George Francis Robert Henderson (biographer)
*
Gods and Generals (novel and film that featured Jackson prominently)
*Alexander, Bevin.
Lost Victories: The Military Genius of Stonewall Jackson. Hippocrene Books, 2004. ISBN 0781810361.
*
Bryson, Bill,
A Walk in the Woods*
Burns, Ken,
The Civil War,
PBS television series, 1990.
*
Freeman, Douglas Southall.
Lee's Lieutenants. 3 volumes. Simon and Schuster, 1942.
*Robertson, James I., Jr.,
Stonewall Jackson: The Man, The Soldier, The Legend, MacMillan Publishing, 1997, ISBN 0-02-864685-1.
*
*
VMI website about Jackson
*
Stonewall Jackson Pictures*
Find-a-Grave entry for Jackson*
Find-a-Grave entry for Jackson's arm*
Fitzhugh Lee's 1879 address on Chancellorsville*
The Stonewall Jackson House
