Thomas Jonathan Jackson - Paternal ancestry, U.S. Army, the Mexican War
US soldier, born in Clarksburg, Virginia, USA. After his parents died in poverty, he was raised by an uncle who helped him obtain an appointment to West Point. Following graduation (1846), he served in the Mexican War, then resigned from the army (1852) to accept a professorship at Virginia Military Institute (VMI), where he became noted for his dedication to his Presbyterian faith. He commanded a detachment of VMI students at the hanging of John Brown (1859). When the Civil War broke out, he did not hesitate to sign on with the Confederates. Appointed a brigadier-general, he organized a brigade of Virginians that fought at First Bull Run, and it was here that the unit was described as standing its ground like a stone wall, and though the brigade, which fought with him to his end, was officially named this, the name became forever attached to Jackson. His Shenandoah campaign of 1862, a strategic diversion that prevented the federals from reinforcing McClellan on the Virginia Peninsula, is graded a military masterpiece. He mysteriously faltered during the Seven Days' Battles on the Peninsula (JunJul 1862), but by Second Bull Run (Aug 1862), he and Lee had perfected their brilliant partnership. They triumphed at Fredericksburg, and Jackson's famous flank march at Chancellorsville (1863) made Lee's victory there possible. But within hours after he had routed the Union right, he was accidentally shot by one of his own men while riding by in the dusk. He died eight days later, and Lee said simply, I know not how to replace him. Not an easy man to know or warm to, he fought with an intelligence, ferocity, and singleness of purpose perhaps equalled only by Sherman.
Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson (January 20 or January 21, 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.
Military historians consider Jackson to be one of the most gifted tactical commanders in United States history. 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. as Jackson lay dying, General Robert E.
Paternal ancestry
Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson was of Scots-Irish descent, and the great-grandson of John Jackson and Elizabeth Cummins.
John was born in Coleraine, County Londonderry, in Northern Ireland.
They had four children. Their second son Edward Jackson (March 1, 1759 – December 25, 1828) was married twice. 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.
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).
In 1830, Julia Neale Jackson remarried.
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.
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. Much of Jackson's education was self-taught. 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. Thomas Jackson graduated 17th out of 59 students in the Class of 1846.
U.S. Army, the Mexican War
Jackson began his U.S. Army career as a brevet second lieutenant in the 1st U.S. Artillery Regiment and was sent to fight in the Mexican-American War from 1846 to 1848. His judgment proved correct, and a relieving brigade was able to exploit the advantage Jackson had broached.
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.
Lexington and the Virginia Military Institute
In the spring of 1851, Thomas Jackson accepted a newly created teaching position at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), in Lexington, Virginia. 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. In 1856, a group of alumni attempted to have Jackson removed from his position.
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. The pastor, Dr. William Spottswood White, described the relationship between Jackson and his Sunday afternoon students: "In their religious instruction he succeeded wonderfully.
Jackson's family owned six slaves in the late 1850s. 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. James Robertson wrote about Jackson's view on slavery:
Jackson neither apologized for nor spoke in favor of the practice of slavery.
—James I. Robertson, Stonewall Jackson: The Man, The Soldier, The Legend
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. An addition was built onto the president's residence for the Jacksons, and when Robert E.
After a tour of Europe, Jackson married again, in 1857. 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.
Civil War
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.
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. Barnard Elliott Bee, Jr., exhorted his own troops to reform by shouting, "There stands Jackson like a stone wall. 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. 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. 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 was actually present, 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. In addition, it was Jackson's only defeat in the Valley.
By adding Maj. Edward "Allegheny" Johnson's small division, Jackson increased his army to 17,000 men. 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). 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.
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 force of 60,000. Stonewall Jackson's reputation for moving his troops so rapidly earned them the oxymoronic nickname "foot cavalry".
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. 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;
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. 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. 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. Jackson and his entire corps were sent on an aggressive flanking maneuver to the right of the Union lines. While riding with his infantry in a wide berth well south and west of the Federal line of battle, Jackson employed Maj. The results were far better than even Jackson could have hoped for. What happened next is given in Lee's own words:
So impressed was I with my discovery, that I rode rapidly back to the point on the Plank road where I had left my cavalry, and back down the road Jackson was moving, until I met "Stonewall" himself. Jackson assented, and I rapidly conducted him to the point of observation.
I only knew Jackson slightly. From what I have read and heard of Jackson since that day, I know now what he was doing then. Stonewall Jackson is praying in full view and in rear of your right flank! I expected to be told I had made a valuable personal reconnaissance—saving the lives of many soldiers, and that Jackson was indebted to me to that amount at least. Perhaps I might have been a little chagrined at Jackson's silence, and hence commented inwardly and adversely upon his horsemanship.
—Fitzhugh Lee, address to the Association of the Army of Northern Virginia, 1879
Jackson immediately returned to his corps and arranged his divisions into a line of battle to charge directly into the oblivious Federal right. Jackson pursued relentlessly back toward the center of the Federal line until dusk.
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, two in the left arm and one in the right hand. Darkness and confusion prevented Jackson getting immediate care. Because of his injuries, Jackson's left arm had to be amputated by Dr. Hunter McGuire. Jackson was moved to Thomas C. He was offered Chandler's home for recovery, but Jackson refused and suggested using Chandler's plantation office building instead. Jackson died of complications of pneumonia on May 10. 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.
Upon hearing of Jackson's death, Robert E. 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."
Legacy
Jackson is considered one of the great characters of the Civil War.
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 has found that none of his contemporaries recorded any unusual lemon habits and Jackson thought of a lemon as a "rare treat ... It has often been hypothesized that Jackson had Asperger syndrome, for which he is a prime example.
In command, Jackson was extremely secretive about his plans and extremely punctilious about military discipline.
The South mourned his death; 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.
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. 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.
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 United States Navy submarine U.S.S. The words "Strength—Mobility" are emblazoned on the ship's banner, words taken from letters written by General Jackson.
The state of Virginia honors Jackson's birthday on Lee-Jackson Day, a state holiday observed as such since 1904.
Stonewall Jackson appears on the CSA $500 bill (7th Issue, February 17, 1864).
In popular media
Jackson is featured prominently in the novel and film Gods and Generals.
Jackson is a character in Harry Turtledove's Timeline-191 series of alternate history novels.
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