THE CIVIL WAR: THE TRUE STORY BOOK 1

Stonewall Jackson

Stonewall Jackson was born around midnight of January 20–21, 1824, in a small house in the heart of Clarksburg, Virginia (now West Virginia). His attorney father always struggled financially. Dying of typhoid when Thomas was two, he left his family impoverished. When his widow, Julia Neale Jackson, remarried four years later, her new husband either could not support or did not wish to raise her older children, who were farmed out to relatives. Thomas was sent to live with his uncle Cummings Jackson, who operated a gristmill and sawmill near the town of Weston some 25 miles from Thomas' birthplace. The gristmill still stands, on the grounds of the West Virginia State 4-H Camp at Jackson's Mill. Thomas found a home with Cummings but little of familial love. The circumstances of his early life may have contributed to his taciturn nature and self-reliance. In 1842, at the age of 18, he became constable of Lewis County briefly but was also one of four local residents to test for an appointment to the West Point Military Academy. The appointment went to Gibson Butcher, but Butcher quickly withdrew from the academy and Jackson, hoping to obtain an education he otherwise could not afford, went to see Congressman Samuel Hays about becoming Butcher's replacement. He got the appointment.

At West Point, he struggled with his classes and studied well into the night, taking no part in social activities. By the time of his graduation in 1846, he had risen from near the bottom to rank 17th in his class. He was sent to the Mexican War as a second lieutenant in the 3rd Artillery Regiment and was twice breveted for his actions in the war.

After Mexico, Jackson served at Fort Hamilton, New York, and in December 1850 was transferred with his artillery company to Fort Meade, Florida. He and his superior, Major William H. French, engaged in bitter disagreements and each filed accusations of misconduct against the other. Before matters escalated further, Jackson resigned to accept a position as an instructor at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington. He memorized his lectures and, if interrupted, would begin again, speaking in a monotone with his high-pitched voice. These and other unusual personality traits—holding one arm aloft to increase circulation and sucking on lemons to name two—earned him such nicknames as "Tom Fool Jackson" among his students. His reputation as a strict disciplinarian didn't help, but over the course of time they came to respect his conscientiousness and honesty.

Jackson had developed a deep interest in the Christian religion earlier, beginning in Mexico. His views were Calvinistic, including a belief that everything is predetermined by God and that man is utterly depraved, i.e., all human actions, whether "good" or "bad" can never gain God's favor because the relationship between humanity and God was severed by original sin. Calvinism's principle of unconditional election teaches that some are chosen by God to be delivered of a knowledge of Himself, and these are selected solely based on His own will and not due to any exceptional behavior or merit of those chosen.

Jackson may have believed he was one of those chosen; elements of Calvinistic beliefs evidenced themselves in his Civil War career. He said it mattered not if he were exposing himself to danger in battle or cowering in bed, when God's chosen time came for him to die, he would die and not until then. He attributed all victories to God and regarded setbacks as requisite chastisement. After the First Battle of Bull Run he wrote to his wife, "Whilst great credit is due to other parts of our gallant army, God made my brigade more instrumental than any other in repulsing the main attack."

The belief in predetermination led Jackson to believe the United States was created by God's will and plan, but that the Confederacy also was created through that same holy will.

In 1855, he began teaching Sunday school classes to slaves in Lexington, a violation of Virginia's segregation laws. Slaves came to know him through these classes and sometimes begged him to buy them so they wouldn't be sold into the Deep South where they might be worked literally to death. In 1906, long after Jackson's death, Reverend L. L. Downing, whose parents had been among the slaves in Jackson's Sunday school, raised money to have a memorial window dedicated to him in the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church of Roanoke, Virginia—likely making "Stonewall" the only Confederate general to have a memorial in an African American church.