Posthumous portrait
This 1864 painting of Jackson was based
on the last photograph of him taken
before his death in 1863. It
captures his reflective and
driven character.Thomas J. Jackson
order he considered clearly wrong.
However, when he was a professor at
the Virginia Military Institute in the
1850s, his students found his manner
and appearance ridiculous, his classes
dull, and his punishments excessive.A damned stone wall
Jackson chose to serve the Confederacy
in April 1861 out of loyalty to his home
state. Given command of a Virginia
brigade, he transformed its volunteers
into a disciplined force with high
morale, qualities demonstrated on the
battlefield at First Bull Run. As his
infantry stood firm on Henry House
Hill, facing a Union onslaught,
Confederate General Barnard E. Bee
cried, “There stands Jackson like a
stone wall!” Intended as praise of his
resolve, Jackson was known as
“Stonewall” ever after.W
idely regarded as the most
inspired tactician of the
Civil War, Thomas Jonathan
Jackson lacked the showmanship
frequently associated with heroic
leaders of men. He was ungainly and
introverted with an awkward and
uncommunicative manner that often
left people unimpressed. Yet he also
possessed a total inner confidence that
imposed itself upon subordinates.
An orphan raised by relatives in
rural Virginia, Jackson had little
formal education. As a result, he
entered West Point at a disadvantage
to most of his fellow students.
Through sheer hard work he
graduated with creditable grades.
When the United States went to war
with Mexico in 1846, he won the
admiration of his superiors as an
artillery officer with courage and
determination, sufficiently confident
in his own judgment to refuse an
CONFEDERATE MAJOR GENERAL Born 1824 Died 1863
CLASH OF ARMIES 1862“My men have sometimes
failed to take a position, but
to defend one, never!”
STATEMENT TO MAJOR HEROS VON BORCKE, DECEMBER 13, 1862Jackson memorabilia
These items belonging to Jackson include a forage cap,
the spurs he was wearing when mortally wounded, a
cloth stained with blood from his wound, and a patriotic
songsheet entitled “Stonewall Jackson’s Way.”