Stonewall Jackson: The Making of a Civil War Hero

Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson was born on January 21, 1824 in Clarksburg, Virginia. When Jackson turned two years old, his older sister died of typhoid fever. His father, Jonathan Jackson died of the same disease a short time later, leaving his wife, Julia Neale Jackson, with three children and immense amounts of debt. Julia Jackson remarried in 1830 to a man who supposedly disliked his stepchildren. Thomas Jackson and his siblings were sent to live with various relatives due to this mutual disliking between the children and their new stepfather. The future Civil War hero was raised by an uncle in the town of Jackson’s Mill, which is located in present-day West Virginia. In 1842, Jackson enrolled at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Older

The Confederate army’s high command had charged him with the task of defending western Virginia from an invasion by Union troops. With an army of some 15,000 to 18,000 troops, Jackson repeatedly outmaneuvered a superior Union force of more than 60,000 men. Jackson’s army moved so quickly during the campaign that they dubbed themselves “foot cavalry.” President Abraham Lincoln (1809-65) had split the Union army into three parts, and Jackson used his mobility to attack and confuse the divided forces over the course of the campaign. He won several key victories over armies of larger size. By the campaign’s end in June, he had earned the admiration of Union generals and had become the South’s first great war hero. Jackson had prevented the Northerners from taking the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, and had done so in the face of unfavorable odds. “On June 8, 1862, Confederate General Thomas J. Jackson attacked and defeated Shield's division that had been pursuing him up the Valley. In the wake of this defeat, Union General Carl Schurz sent a confidential dispatch to president Abraham Lincoln analyzing Federal problems in the Shenandoah

Facing a numerically superior Union force of 130,000 men to 60,000 of their own, Lee and Jackson devised and executed a plan to rout the army of Union General Joseph Hooker (1814-79). Historians call this battle one of Lee’s finest moments as a Confederate general, and his success owed much to Jackson’s participation. On May 2, Jackson stealthily and quickly took 28,000 troops on an approximately 15-mile forced march to Hooker’s exposed flank while Lee engaged in diversionary attacks on his front. Jackson’s attack on the Union rear inflicted massive casualties on the superior force, and Hooker was forced to withdraw only days later. But the victory was not without cost. Jackson’s brutal attack ended at sunset, and he took some men into the forest to scout ahead. A North Carolina regiment mistook them for enemy cavalry and opened fire, severely wounding Jackson. He was taken from the field and General J. E. B. Stuart (1833-64) took over his command. Doctors determined that a bullet had shattered the bone just below his left shoulder, and they quickly amputated Jackson’s left arm. He was transferred to a field hospital at a nearby plantation to recover. Lee dispatched a letter, writing, “Could I have directed events, I would have chosen for the good of the country to be disabled in your stead.” Jackson initially appeared to be healing, but he died from