Picture taken at Fredericksburg Battlefield by Julie Youde.

Thomas “Stonewall” Jonathan Jackson was born in Clarksburg, Virginia, which is now West Virginia, on January 21, 1824.  He was orphaned early on in his life and was raised by his uncle Cummins Jackson, who was a miller.  When he was a boy he went to country schools, and didn’t get much of an education. He eventually went to the United States Military Academy in 1842.  Because he had gone to schools that taught roughly, Jackson had to work very hard to understand the concepts put before him.  His grade steadily rose, and he graduated at the upper third of his class.  It was said that if he had had one more year of education that he would have graduated first in his class.

        Jackson was assigned a war zone in Mexico, and it was there he first met General Robert E. Lee.  He rose to the temporary rank of major in one year.  When the Mexican War ended Jackson served in many forts.  In 1850 Jackson’s company went to Florida to fight Seminole Indians.  Jackson left the army in1850 and joined the faculty at the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington.  He taught until 1861.  He was not a popular teacher there and the students mocked his sternness, his religious nature, and his eccentric traits. 

        In 1835 Jackson married Elinor Junkin, who died the very next year.  Jackson then married Mary Anna Morrison.  Jackson favored the Union but went along with his own state, Virginia. When the war started Jackson was unknown.  He made his reputation though in the first Battle of Bull Run.  “He was fighting under Lee’s command.  During the battle Jackson’s troops faced “overwhelming odds’.  They formed a strong line and tried to hold their ground.  General Barnard E. Bee was trying to rally his troops up a little when he saw Jackson’s line and shouted, “There is Jackson standing like a

 stone wall!  Rally behind the Virginians!”  The name “Stonewall” stuck with Jackson after that.

        General Lee and Jackson worked very well together and Lee couldn’t find another person to replace Jackson after he died.  But, before he died he fought his greatest battle.  During May of 1863, Jackson took his troops around the Union forces near Chancellorsville, in Virginia.  There, Jackson’s men struck the Union forces from behind and drove them back in crazy disorder.

        That night, Jackson went ahead of the line to scout.  In the dark, his own men mistook him for the enemy, and shot him.  As Jackson lay wounded, doctors amputated his left arm.  Lee had said, “He has lost his left arm; but I have lost my right arm.”  Thomas “Stonewall” Jonathan Jackson died of pneumonia on May 10, 1863, eight days after he was shot.  The Confederate army won the battle in which Jackson had fallen.  His death more than  counterbalanced the victory.  Jackson was buried in Lexington, Virginia.  In 1885 he was elected to the Hall of Fame.