service was to take the well-trained VMI
cadets and employ them as drillmasters in the
newly formed Confederate army.
In June 1861, Jackson was promoted to
brigadier general in the army of Gen. Joseph
E. Johnston, and the following month he dis-
tinguished himself at the Battle of Bull Run
against Gen. Irvin McDowell. He made a rapid
transfer from the Shenandoah Valley on trains,
marking the first time combat troops moved to
a battle by railroad. His staunch defense of
Henry House occasioned Gen. Barnard El-
liott Beeto remark, “There is Jackson stand-
ing like a stone wall!” The nickname stuck.
Promoted to major general in October, he then
returned to the Shenandoah Valley and con-
ducted one of the most brilliant campaigns of
the entire war. Between March and June 1862,
Jackson’s bedraggled 17,000 men outmarched,
outfoxed, and outfought a combined Union
force of 60,000. Gens. James Shields,
Nathaniel Banks, and John C. Frémont were
all defeated in a series of battles that pre-
vented the army of George B. McClellan, men-
acing Richmond, from being reinforced. Suc-
cess came with a price: Jackson gained the
reputation as a harsh and secretive taskmas-
ter. Furthermore, he quarreled with such com-
petent leaders as Ambrose P. Hill, whom at
one point he arrested. In September 1862,
Jackson crowned his success with the capture
of 12,000 Union troops at Harpers Ferry. Or-
ders then arrived directing him to join John-
ston’s successor, General Lee, in Virginia.
In June 1862, Jackson’s fatigue and unfa-
miliarity with the terrain resulted in a lacklus-
ter performance at White Oak Swamp. How-
ever, he recovered his step in time to fight
brilliantly against Gen. John Pope at Second
Manassas. By concluding a 51-mile march in
only two days, his command captured Pope’s
supply base at Manassas Junction and be-
came thereafter known as the “foot cavalry.”
In September 1862, Jackson again distin-
guished himself at Antietam and the following
month received a promotion to lieutenant
general and command of the II Corps, half of
Lee’s army. In this capacity he commanded
the left wing of the Army of Northern Virginia
at Fredericksburg in December 1862, and he
assisted in the bloody repulse of Gen. Am-
brose Burnside. On many a far-flung field, the
functional rapport between Lee and Jackson
proved an unbeatable combination.
Jackson reached his operational zenith
during the Chancellorsville campaign of May
1863, when the Confederates were outnum-
bered two-to-one. Having lured the army of
Gen. Joseph Hooker into a false sense of se-
curity, Lee divided his army in half and sent
the II Corps around the Union’s right flank. On
the morning of May 2, Jackson fell like a thun-
derbolt on Gen. Oliver O. Howard’s XI Corps,
routing it and forcing a Union retreat. Victory
was complete, but while returning from the
only scouting foray of his entire career, Jack-
son was mistakenly shot and wounded by his
own men. He lingered for eight days before
dying of pneumonia in Guinea Station, Vir-
ginia, on May 10, 1863. “I know not how to re-
place him,” bemoaned Lee. “I have lost my
good right arm.” Command of the II Corps
passed to the talented but erratic Richard S.
Ewell. The Army of Northern Virginia went on
to fight heroically for two more years, but it
was never quite the same without “Stonewall”
Jackson at the point.Bibliography
Alexander, Bevin. Lost Victories: The Military Genius
of Stonewall Jackson.New York: Holt, 1992; Cas-
dorph, Paul D. Lee and Jackson: Confederate Chief-
tains.New York: Paragon House, 1992; Farwell,
Byron. Stonewall: A Biography of General Thomas
J. Jackson.New York: W. W. Norton, 1997; Gallagher,
Gary W., ed. Chancellorsville: The Battle and Its Af-
termath.Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1996; Glatthaar, Joseph T. Partners in Com-
mand: The Relationships Between Leaders in the
Civil War.New York: Maxwell Macmillan Interna-
tional, 1994; Green, Jennifer R. “From West Point to
the Virginia Military Institute: The Educational Life
of Stonewall Jackson,” Virginia Cavalcade49, no. 3
(2000): 134–143; Jackson, Mary Anna. Life and Let-
ters of General Thomas J. Jackson.New York:JACKSON, THOMASJ. “STONEWALL”