General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson

Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson

(1824-63)

American soldier, considered by military authorities an outstanding leader, a skilled tactician, and one of the ablest Confederate commanders.

Jackson was born Thomas Jonathan Jackson on January 21, 1824, in Clarksburg, Virginia (now in West Virginia), and was educated at the U.S. Military Academy. Following his graduation (1846) from West Point he participated in the Mexican War until 1848. He became an instructor at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in 1851, and the next year he resigned from the army. On the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, he left VMI to enter the Confederate army. He was immediately commissioned a colonel and within months was given the rank of brigadier general.

Jackson earned his popular nickname at the First Battle of Bull Run (1861), where his troops stood against the Union forces "like a stone wall," according to a colleague, Brig. General Barnard E. Bee. While commanding his troops, the so-called Stonewall Brigade, during a campaign in the Shenandoah Valley in the spring of 1862, Jackson executed a remarkable tactical maneuver against three Union armies then menacing Richmond. After driving back the army of General Nathaniel Prentiss Banks (1816-94), which was advancing from the north, Jackson turned and defeated the armies threatening to attack his rear ranks from the east and west.

Jackson subsequently took part, with General Robert E. Lee, in the defeat of General George McClellan in the Seven Days' Battle at Richmond. In August 1862, Jackson defeated the army of General John Pope, thus ensuring a Confederate victory at the Second Battle of Bull Run. Jackson then crossed the Potomac into Maryland with Lee, who ordered him to capture Harpers Ferry. His task accomplished in September 1862, Jackson rushed north to Antietam Creek to aid Lee, who was under attack by an overwhelming Union force.

Jackson commanded the right wing of the victorious Confederate army at Fredericksburg in December 1862. During the Rappahannock campaign in Virginia the following spring, by launching a surprise attack on the rear columns of the Union army, Jackson prevented the threatened encirclement of the Confederate forces by the troops of General Joseph Hooker.

On May 2, 1863, while leading his forces at Chancellorsville, Jackson was accidentally shot while reconnoitering with members of his staff. The 18th North Carolina Infantry Regiment was responsible for the "friendly fire" incident. Jackson was struck by three .57 caliber bullets. He was taken to a field hospital near the battlefield, where his left arm was amputated. On May 4, Jackson was moved to a field hospital at the home of Thomas and Mary Chandler, near Guiney Station, approximately 30 miles from the battlefield. Jackson died at 3:15 p.m on May 10th. Ironically, his wounds were healing and he was recovering well in that regard, but pneumonia set in which worsened and actually was what caused his death.

His last words were "Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees."
On May 15, Jackson's funeral took place in Lexington, Virginia, the town that was Jackson's home during his years as Professor at VMI.

His wife, Mary Anna Morrison Jackson, never remarried. She was known as the "Widow of the Confederacy" and lived until 1915.

(See Bibliography below)

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Photographs: National Archives and Records Administration. Photographed by George W Minnes, April 1863.
Bibliography: Bowers, John, Stonewall Jackson: Portrait of a Soldier (1989); Chambers, Lenoir, Stonewall Jackson, 2 vols. (1959); Henderson, G. F., Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War (1896; repr. 1988); Krick, R., Stonewall Jackson at Cedar Mountain (1990); Robertson, James I., Stonewall Jackson--the Man, the Soldier, the Legend. New York : Macmillan Library Reference USA, (1997); Tanner, Robert G., Stonewall in the Valley (1976); Tate, Allen, Stonewall Jackson: The Good Soldier (1957); Vandiver, Frank E., Mighty Stonewall (1957; repr. 1988).