Stonewall Jackson facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Thomas Jonathan Jackson
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General Jackson photographed at Winchester, Virginia 1862
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| Nickname(s) | "Stonewall", "Old Jack", "Old Blue Light", "Tom Fool" |
| Born | January 21, 1824 Clarksburg, Virginia, U.S. (now Clarksburg, West Virginia) |
| Died | May 10, 1863 (aged 39) Guinea Station, Virginia |
| Buried |
Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery
Lexington, Virginia, U.S. |
| Allegiance | United States of America (1846–1851) Confederate States of America (1861–1863) |
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| Battles/wars | Mexican–American War American Civil War
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| Signature |  |
Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson (January 21, 1824 – May 10, 1863) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, and the best-known Confederate commander after General Robert E. Lee. He played a prominent role in nearly all military engagements in the Eastern theater of the war until his death. Military historians regard him as one of the most gifted tactical commanders in U.S. history.
On May 2, 1863, Jackson was accidentally shot by Confederate pickets. He lost his left arm to amputation. Weakened by his wounds, he died of pneumonia eight days later. His death proved a severe setback for the Confederacy.
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Early life
Thomas Jackson was born in the town of Clarksburg, Harrison County, Virginia, on January 21, 1824. He was the third child of Julia Beckwith (née Neale) Jackson (1798–1831) and Jonathan Jackson (1790–1826), an attorney.
Thomas's sister Elizabeth (age six) died of typhoid fever on March 6, 1826, with two-year-old Thomas at her bedside. His father also died of a typhoid fever on March 26, 1827, after nursing his daughter. Jackson's mother gave birth to his sister Laura Ann the day after Jackson's father died. 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 opened a private school to support herself and her three young children for about four years.
In 1830, Julia remarried. Her new husband, Captain Blake B. Woodson, an attorney, did not like his stepchildren. Julia remained in such poor health, and caring for the children was such a strain on her strength, that she agreed to let their Grandmother Jackson take them to her home in Lewis County, about four miles north of Weston.
The following year, after giving birth to Thomas's half-brother Willam Wirt Woodson, Julia died of complications, leaving her three older children orphaned.
After their mother's death, Jackson and his sister Laura Ann were separated—Laura Ann was sent to live with her mother's family, Thomas to stay with his Aunt Polly (his father's sister) and her husband, Isaac Brake, on a farm four miles from Clarksburg. Thomas was treated by Brake as an outsider and, having suffered verbal abuse for over a year, ran away from the family. He walked eighteen miles through mountain wilderness to Cummins Jackson's (his half-uncle) mill in Lewis County in central West Virginia. He remained there for the following seven years.
Jackson helped around the farm, tending sheep with the assistance of a sheepdog, driving teams of oxen and helping harvest wheat and corn. Much of Jackson's education was self-taught. In his later years at Jackson's Mill, Thomas served as a schoolteacher.
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Military career
In 1842, Jackson was accepted to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He became one of the hardest working cadets in the academy, and moved steadily up the academic rankings, graduating 17th out of 59 students in the Class of 1846.
Jackson began his United States Army career as a second lieutenant in Company K of the 1st U.S. Artillery Regiment. He served at the Siege of Veracruz and the battles of Contreras, Chapultepec, and Mexico City, eventually earning two brevet promotions, and the regular army rank of first lieutenant. It was in Mexico that Jackson first met Robert E. Lee.
In the spring of 1851, Jackson accepted a newly created teaching position at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI). He became Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy, or Physics, and Instructor of Artillery.
Civil War
In April 1861, Jackson was appointed Colonel of Virginia Infantry and then promoted to a Colonel 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 unit which later gained fame as the "Stonewall Brigade". Jackson was known for his relentless drilling of his troops. He believed discipline was vital to success on the battlefield.
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Jackson rose to prominence and earned his most famous nickname, Stonewall Jackson, at the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas) on July 21, 1861. As the Confederate lines began to crumble under heavy Union assault, Jackson's brigade, known as the Stonewall Brigade, provided crucial reinforcements on Henry House Hill and stopped the Union assault, suffering more casualties than any other Southern brigade that day. During the battle, Jackson displayed a gesture common to him and held his left arm skyward with the palm facing forward – interpreted by his soldiers variously as an eccentricity or an entreaty to God for success in combat. His hand was struck by a bullet or a piece of shrapnel and he suffered a small loss of bone in his middle finger. He refused medical advice to have the finger amputated. After the battle, Jackson was promoted to major general (October 7, 1861) and given command of the Valley District, with headquarters in Winchester.
In the spring of 1862, Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac approached 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 threatened 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 excellent knowledge and shrewd use of the terrain. Along with an uncommon ability to inspire his troops to great feats of marching and fighting, he was able succeed against his poorly coordinated and sometimes timid opponents. He won five significant victories with a force of about 17,000 against a combined force of 60,000. Union forces were withdrawn from the Valley.
Jackson's reputation for moving his troops so rapidly earned them the 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.
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 went 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. The results were far better than even Jackson could have hoped. Fitzhugh 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.
Jackson 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 Federal soldiers 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. Darkness ended the assault.
Jackson was hit by three bullets: two in the left arm and one in the right hand. His left arm had to be amputated.
Death
Jackson died of complications from pneumonia on May 10, 1863, eight days after he was shot.
Jackson's fatal bullet was withdrawn, examined, and found to be 67 caliber (0.67 inches, 17 mm), a type in service with the Confederate forces. Union troops in the area were using 58 caliber balls. This was one of the first instances of forensic ballistics identification derived from a firearm projectile.
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 Oak Grove Cemetery, Lexington, Virginia. The arm that was amputated on May 2 was buried separately by Jackson's chaplain (Beverly Tucker Lacy), at the J. Horace Lacy house, "Ellwood", (now preserved at the Fredericksburg National Battlefield) in the Wilderness of Orange County, near the field hospital.
Views on slavery
In 1855, Jackson organized Sunday School classes for blacks at the Presbyterian Church. His second wife, Mary Anna Jackson, taught with Jackson. He addressed his students by name and they referred to him as "Marse Major".
Jackson owned six slaves in the late 1850s. James Robertson wrote about Jackson's view on slavery:
Jackson neither apologized for nor spoke in favor of the practice of slavery. He probably opposed the institution. Yet in his mind the Creator had sanctioned slavery, and man had no moral right to challenge its existence. The good Christian slaveholder was one who treated his servants fairly and humanely at all times.
Marriages and family life
In 1853, Thomas Jackson married Elinor "Ellie" Junkin. Ellie gave birth to a stillborn son on October 22, 1854.
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. Mary Anna 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, the brick town house at 8 East Washington Street was purchased by Jackson in 1859. He lived in it for two years before being called to serve in the Confederacy. Jackson never returned to his home.
Command style
Jackson was extremely secretive about his plans. This did not stand him in good stead with his subordinates, who were often not aware of his overall operational intentions until the last minute.
Robert E. Lee could trust Jackson with deliberately undetailed orders that conveyed Lee's overall objectives. 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. Few of Lee's subsequent corps commanders had this ability. At Gettysburg, this resulted in lost opportunities. With a defeated and disorganized Union Army trying to regroup on high ground near town and vulnerable, Lee sent one of his new corps commanders, Richard S. Ewell, discretionary orders that the heights (Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill) be taken "if practicable". Without Jackson's intuitive grasp of Lee's orders or the instinct to take advantage of 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.
Horsemanship
Jackson had a poor reputation as a horseman. One of his soldiers, Georgia volunteer William Andrews, wrote that Jackson was "a very ordinary looking man of medium size, his uniform badly soiled as though it had seen hard service. He wore a cap pulled down nearly to his nose and was riding a rawboned horse that did not look much like a charger, unless it would be on hay or clover. He certainly made a poor figure on a horseback, with his stirrup leather six inches too short, putting his knees nearly level with his horse's back, and his heels turned out with his toes sticking behind his horse's foreshoulder. A sorry description of our most famous general, but a correct one."
Legacy
Many theorists through the years have postulated that if Jackson had lived, Lee might have prevailed at Gettysburg. Certainly Jackson's discipline and tactical sense were sorely missed.
As a boy, General George Patton (of World War II fame) prayed next to two portraits of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, whom he assumed were God and Jesus. He once told Dwight D. Eisenhower "I will be your Jackson." General Douglas MacArthur called Robert L. Eichelberger his Stonewall Jackson. Chesty Puller idolized Jackson, and carried George Henderson's biography of Jackson with him on campaigns. Alexander Vandegrift also idolized Jackson.
Commemorations
As an important element of the ideology of the "Lost Cause", Jackson has been commemorated in numerous ways, including with statues, currency, and postage. A poem penned during the war soon became a popular song, "Stonewall Jackson's Way". The Stonewall Brigade Band is still active today.
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.
During a training exercise in Virginia by U.S. Marines in 1921, the Marine commander, General Smedley Butler was told by a local farmer that Stonewall Jackson's arm was buried nearby under a granite marker, to which Butler replied, "Bosh! I will take a squad of Marines and dig up that spot to prove you wrong!" Butler found the arm in a box under the marker. He later replaced the wooden box with a metal one, and reburied the arm. He left a plaque on the granite monument marking the burial place of Jackson's arm; the plaque is no longer on the marker but can be viewed at the Chancellorsville Battlefield visitor's center.
Beginning in 1904 the Commonwealth of Virginia celebrated Jackson's birthday as a state holiday; the observance was eliminated, with Election Day as a replacement holiday, effective July 2020.
Jackson is featured on the 1925 Stone Mountain Memorial half-dollar.
A Stonewall Jackson Monument was unveiled on October 11, 1919, in Richmond, Virginia. It was removed on July 1, 2020, during the 2020–2021 United States racial unrest.
Interesting facts about Stonewall Jackson
- Jackson was disliked as a teacher, with his students nicknaming him "Tom Fool" because he memorized his lectures and then recited them to the class. Students who came to ask for help were given the same explanation as before. If a student asked for help a second time, Jackson simply repeated the explanation slower and more deliberately.
- Just before the Battle of Fredericksburg, Jackson was presented with a fine general's frock coat. Jackson's previous coat was threadbare and colorless from exposure to the elements, its buttons removed by admiring ladies. Jackson refused to wear it for months saying that it was too handsome for him.
- One of Jackson's many nicknames was "Old Blue Lights", a term applied to a military man whose zeal burned with the intensity of the blue light used for night-time display.
- The night Robert E. Lee learned of Jackson's death, he told his cook: "William, I have lost my right arm", and, "I'm bleeding at the heart."
- Jackson 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", and occasionally even fell asleep with food in his mouth.
- A recurring story concerns Jackson's love of lemons, which he allegedly gnawed whole to alleviate symptoms of dyspepsia (indigestion).
- Jackson's horse was named "Little Sorrel" (also known as "Old Sorrel"), a small chestnut gelding which was a captured Union horse from a Connecticut farm. He rode Little Sorrel throughout the war, and was riding him when he was shot at Chancellorsville. Little Sorrel died at age 36 and is buried near a statue of Jackson on the parade grounds of VMI.
- Jackson's wife, Mary Anna Jackson, wrote two books about her husband's life. She never remarried, and was known as the "Widow of the Confederacy", living until 1915.
- Jackson's last words, "Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees" were the inspiration for the title of Ernest Hemingway's 1950 novel Across the River and into the Trees.
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Montage of Thomas J. Jackson and staff
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General Jackson's "Chancellorsville" portrait, taken at a Spotsylvania County farm on April 26, 1863, seven days before he was wounded at the Battle of Chancellorsville
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Lower right photograph of trees shattered by artillery shells near where Jackson was shot on the Orange Plank Road
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Robert E. Lee, Stonewal Jackson and Stratford Hall, Army Issue of 1936
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Portrait on the 1864 Confederate $500 banknote; Jackson was the only general featured on Confederate currency
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The 1863 sheet music The Stonewall Brigade, Dedicated to the Memory of Stonewall Jackson, the Immortal Southern Hero, and His Brave Veterans
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Jackson on an 1863 Confederate loan
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Davis, Lee, and Jackson on Stone Mountain
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The Thomas Jonathan Jackson sculpture in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia
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Statue of Jackson in downtown Clarksburg, West Virginia
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Bust of Jackson at the Washington-Wilkes Historical Museum
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The Stonewall Jackson Monument in Richmond, Virginia being removed in 2020
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Jackson reading the Bible in a Confederate camp in a stained glass window of the Washington National Cathedral. The windows were removed in 2017.
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See also
In Spanish: Thomas Jonathan Jackson para niños
