While
returning from a chaotic pursuit in the midst of the Battle of
Chancellorsville, Lieutenant General Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall”
Jackson was shot by Confederate troops. Earlier, he had led his men
in a surprise attack on a camp of Union soldiers, many of them
playing cards. The attack was so successful that Jackson chased and
captured Yankees until after dark, when he gave the order to return
to camp. There, infantry on guard mistook the commander's horses for
Union cavalry and opened fire even before Jackson had a chance to
reply to “who goes there?” It was the latest stroke of bad luck
in a trouble life.
Jackson
was born in Clarksburg in 1824 in what would later be called West
Virginia. Typhoid fever took his older sister and father in 1826, one
day before his mother had her fourth child, Jackson’s sister Laura
Ann. The young widow struggled in poverty, remarrying and dying
during the birth of Jackson’s half-brother. Now orphans, Jackson
and his siblings were divided among relatives. After a year at his
Aunt Polly’s, eight-year-old Jackson decided he preferred his Uncle
Cummins and ran away, walking eighteen miles to his new home and
showing willpower that would be the foundation of his personality.
In
1846, Jackson was accepted to West Point. His formal education had
been lackluster, and entrance exams placed him at the bottom of his
class. Through diligent hard work, he graduated four years later in
the top third. His fellow students said that if it had been a
five-year program, he would have been first in the class.
Directly
out of West Point, Jackson served in the Mexican-American War as an
artillery commander. He disobeyed an order to retreat, earning a
promotion to major by the end of the war. After various assignments
from Florida to New York, he found a teaching career at the Virginia
Military Institute, where he expected his students to have the same
level of discipline he did. Stories were told that Jackson memorized
his lectures the night before class. If he were interrupted by a
student, he would give a glare and then start over from the
beginning. Students routinely fought with him, and sentiments were so
sour that even after graduating, alumni requested that he be forced
to resign.
Although
they were overall happy years, Jackson’s time in Lexington, VA,
continued his life’s plague of ill luck. His first wife died during
the stillbirth of their first child. He remarried and had two
daughters, but Jackson himself suffered a variety of ailments. Today
doctors hypothesize he had a herniated diaphragm, but at the time
Jackson was seen as an eccentric who slept only in catnaps, took
mineral water baths, ate little other than crackers, milk, and
lemons, and constantly stood rather than sitting, which he said
caused indigestion.
At
the outbreak of the Civil War, Jackson transitioned from a peacetime
teacher to a drillmaster. He seized the depot at Harper’s Ferry and
began winning fame with daring raids. During the Battle of Bull Run
in 1861, his stalwart brigade refused to give a foot of battlefield,
spurring General Bernard Bee to say (shortly before being mortally
wounded), “There is Jackson standing like a stone wall.” The
Valley Campaign of 1862 thrust Jackson further into the spotlight as
his infantry raced from battle to battle up the Shenandoah, covering
an average of more than thirteen miles of marching each day and
earning themselves the nickname “foot cavalry.” Through worn-torn
north Virginia, only General Robert E. Lee, whom Jackson had met in
the Mexican War, was more famous.
Stonewall
Jackson was shot three times in Chancellorsville, prompting the
amputation of his left arm and part of his right hand. A particularly
astute doctor noted Jackson’s complaints of pain in his chest as
the onset of pneumonia. His lifelong bad luck had proven good since
that pneumonia could have taken his life. As May turned to June,
Jackson was back on his feet and requested duties from Lee.
Lee
was dubious. Jackson, who was notoriously already terrible
horse-riding, could barely hold a pencil, let alone a rein. Lee tried
to convince Jackson to return home, but Jackson’s dedication
required that he serve his country. At last Lee found a place for him
replacing Major General Pendleton to oversee the artillery and
brought him along on the new campaign to invade the North. Union
General Hooker, still seething from defeat at Chancellorsville, took
up pursuit but was replaced by the more cautious Meade. On July 1,
the two enormous armies became intertwined at the Battle of
Gettysburg.
The
Confederates gained an early upper hand, but the Union defenses in
the hills south of Gettysburg proved too solid to crack. Lee planned
a daring artillery barrage followed by a sudden uphill charge to be
led by Longstreet (a tactic perfected during Cavour and Garibaldi’s
Unification Wars in Italy). His empty sleeve belted to his shirt,
Jackson reviewed the artillery under Colonel Alexander and charged
him with near-treason. Jackson, who had long practiced his hearing
after his earlier work with artillery left him partially deaf, noted
shells were going off too late, meaning they were overshooting.
Longstreet, who was opposed to the risky assault, gave Jackson the
duty of choosing the time for the assault. After reorganizing the
artillery, Jackson volunteered to lead the charge.
Jackson’s
Charge proved effectual in breaking the Union lines. Meade, who had
already moved his command due to the early overshooting Confederate
artillery, retreated southward. Over 15,000 Union troops to the north
were encircled and captured, but the bulk of the army successfully
escaped after a daring cavalry flanking attack by Union General
Kilpatrick.
The
South had won the day, but the victory proved a white elephant.
Torrential rain on July 4 prevented Lee from pursuing Meade’s army.
Meade reformed to the south and sent armies to cut off Lee’s supply
lines through Chambersburg and Carlisle, just as the Confederates now
had thousands prisoners to feed. Lee was forced to keep up his
momentum, leaving behind thousands of unburied soldiers. He marched
on Harrisburg, where he met with more Union armies that poured into
the region from the north. At the disastrous Battle of Harrisburg,
Lee surrendered along with tens of thousands of soldiers, including
Jackson. Stuart led a force of less than 7,000 that escaped back to
Virginia.
With
the end of the war in 1864, Jackson returned to Virginia, where he
became a teacher with the Freedman’s Bureau. Jackson already had a
long history as a Black educator, even illegally teaching one of his
uncle’s slaves to read in exchange for pine knots that he used as
lighting for reading as a teenager. While at the VMI, Jackson had
founded Sunday school classes for local Blacks while a deacon in the
Presbyterian Church. Jackson continued his work through
Reconstruction, helping to found the university that would later be
named for him.
--
In
reality, Jackson’s pneumonia went untreated, and he died on May 10.
Jackson would be long remembered for his daring in battle and his
superhuman resolve.
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