A History of the American People

resolute, daring, and ingenious army commander. On April 6-7, 1862, in the first major battle of
the war at Shiloh, at Pittsburg Landing in Tennessee, Johnson hurled his 40,000 troops against
General Ulysses S. Grant (1822-85), who had only 3 3,000. The first day's fighting brought
overwhelming success to the Confederates but Johnston was wounded towards the end of it. That
proved a disaster for the South: not only was their best general to date lost, but Grant turned the
tide of battle the next day by leading a charge personally and the Confederates were routed.
However, Johnston was not the only man brought to the fore by First Bull Run. During the
melee, the officer commanding the South Carolina volunteers rallied his frightened men by
pointing to the neighboring brigade commanded by General Thomas J. Jackson (1824-63) and
saying: There stands Jackson like a stone wall.' The name stuck and Jackson's fame was assured. But it was inappropriate. Jackson was not a defensive commander but a most audacious and determined offensive one, with the true killer instinct of a great general. There was only one way the South might win the war. That was by enveloping and destroying in battle the main Unionist Army of the Potomac, taking Washington and persuading the fainthearts on the Unionist side- there were plenty of them-that the cost of waging the war was too high and that a compromise must be sought. Had Lincoln thus been deserted by a majority in Congress, he would have resigned, and the whole of American history would have been different. Jackson was an orphan, the son of a bankrupt lawyer from Allegheny, Virginia. He was about as unSouthern as it was possible for a Virginia gentleman to be. As Grant put it,He impressed
me always as a man of the Cromwell stamp, much more of a New Englander than a Virginian.'
He was a Puritan. There is a vivid pen-portrait of him by Mrs James Chesnut, a Richmond lady
who kept a war diary. He said to her dourly: I like strong drink-so I never touch it.' He sucked lemons instead and their sourness pervaded his being. He had no sense of humor, and tried to stamp out swearing and obscene joking among his men. He wasan ungraceful horseman
mounted on a sorry chestnut with a shambling gait, his huge feet with out-turned toes thrust into
his stirrups, and such parts of his countenance as the low visor of his stocking cap failed to
conceal wearing a wooden look.' Jackson had no slaves and there are grounds for believing he
detested slavery. In Lexington he set up a school for black children, something most Southerners
hated-in some states it was unlawful-and persisted in it, despite much cursing and opposition. His
sister-in-law, who wrote a memoir of him, said he accepted slavery as it existed in the Southern States, not as a thing desirable in itself, but as allowed by Providence for ends it was not his business to determine.' Yet, as Grant said,If any man believed in the rebellion, he did.' Jackson fought with a
ferocity and single-minded determination which no other officer on either side matched. Mrs
Chesnut records a fellow-general's view: He certainly preferred a fight on Sunday to a sermon. [But] failing to manage a fight, he loved next best a long, Presbyterian sermon, Calvinist to the core. He had no sympathy for human infirmity. He was the true type of all great soldiers. He did not value human life where he had an object to accomplish.' His men feared him:He gave
orders rapidly and distinctly and rode away without allowing answer or remonstrance. When you
failed, you were apt to be put under arrest.' He enjoyed war and battle, believing it was God's
work, and he was ambitious in a way unusual for Southerners, who were happy-go-lucky except
in defense of their beliefs and ways. Jackson would have liked to have been a dictator for
righteousness. But, having won the terrifying Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863, he was
shot in the back by men of one of his own brigades, Malone's, who supposedly mistook him in
the moonlight for a Yankee. After Jackson's death the Confederacy lost all its battles except
Chickamauga.