(1826-1863)
[Footnote 12: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
[Illustration: Thomas Jackson. [TN]]
In 1842 a young man from Lewis County, Va., "dropped" discouraged out
of his class in West Point, after a few weeks' trial of drill and
curriculum, and returned home.
The story of his defeat was canvassed freely in the neighborhood
smithy, the head-quarters of provincial gossip, and was under
discussion one May day while Cummins Jackson, a planter and bachelor,
waited to have a horse shod.
"There's a chance for Tom Jackson!" observed the blacksmith, with
friendly officiousness.
The early life of Cummins Jackson's nephew was well known to speaker
and bystanders. Left an orphan at seven years of age, he, with his
brother, older than himself, and their little sister, were thrown upon
the charity of uncles and aunts. "Tom" was accounted steady and
industrious, yet there was a serious break in his record. The brothers
had run away to seek their fortunes in company when Warren was
fourteen, Tom but twelve years old, going down the Ohio to the
Mississippi and maintaining themselves by cutting wood for passing
steamboats until disabled by malarial fever. Thomas took the lead in
the juvenile prodigals' return to relatives and respectability, and
was kindly received by his bachelor uncle. Since then he had worked in
Cummins Jackson's mill and upon his farm as diligently as he sought to
"get an education" in the "old field school" nearest to his home.
His imagination took fire at his uncle's report of the blacksmith's
suggestion. Armed with a letter of introduction signed by leading
citizens of the county, to the Congressman from the district, he went
in person to Washington and through the kindness of the
representative obtained an interview with the Secretary of War.
"Gruff and heroic with the grit of Old Hickory himself" was the
cabinet-officer's opinion of the country lad. He commended him to the
West Point Board of Examiners in terms that secured him admission to
the Military Academy in spite of certain grave deficiencies in his
early education.
The story of the wrestle with these and other disabilities during the
next four years is interesting and instructive. Three extracts from a
list of rules for his personal conduct, set down at this time in a
private note-book, sound the keynote of his subsequent career:
"_Sacrifice your life rather than your word._
"_Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you
resolve._
"_You may be whatever you resolve to be._"
He was respected by all his classmates, known and liked by a few. He
was too reserved by nature, too busy in practice, to be a general
favorite. His labors were unremitting, his recreations few and simple.
With no prevision of the destinies awaiting them, Jackson, McClellan,
A. T. Hill, Reno, Picket, Foster, and Maury, as beardless boys,
studied and were drilled side by side for four terms and were
graduated upon the same day. There were seventy in this remarkable
class, and the name of Thomas Jonathan Jackson stood seventeenth upon
the roll of merit.
"If we had to stay here one year more, old Jack would be at the head,"
the witnesses of the fierce ordeal of his West Point training used to
say.
The class of '46 was ordered forthwith to the seat of war in Mexico.
Jackson's first engagement was the siege of Vera Cruz; his next the
battle of Cherubusco. The official report of this last mentions him
favorably. As second lieutenant, he was called upon early in the
action to take the place of the next in rank above him, the first
lieutenant having fallen in the charge. After the battle Jackson was
further promoted to the rank of brevet captain. His "devotion,
industry, talent, and gallantry" were noted officially after
Chapultepec, not only by his colonel, but by Generals Pillow and
Worth, and by the Commander-in-chief, Winfield Scott.
What he afterward confessed as the "one wilful lie he ever told" is
thus reported by a brother-officer:
"Lieutenant Jackson's section of Magruder's battery was subjected to a
plunging fire from the Castle of Chapultepec. Horses were killed or
disabled, and the men deserted the guns and sought shelter behind wall
or embankment. Lieutenant Jackson remained at the guns, walking back
and forth and kept saying, 'See, there is no danger; _I_ am not hit!'
While standing with his legs wide apart, a cannon-ball passed between
them.... No other officer in the army in Mexico was promoted so often
for meritorious conduct, or made so great a stride in rank."
After peace was declared in 1848, he was stationed for two years at
Fort Hamilton, and six months at Fort Meade in Florida; in 1851 he was
elected Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy and
Artillery Tactics in the Virginia Military Institute, situated in
Lexington, Va. In the decade succeeding this event, he was to the
casual eye the least striking figure in the group of professors who
taught the art of war in the beautiful mountain-girt "West Point of
the South."
"I should have said that he was the least likely of our family to make
a noise in the world," said his sister-in-law in 1862, when the
popular voice was ranking him with Bayard, Roland, Sidney, and
Napoleon.
"I knew that what I willed to do, I could do," he had said of his
recovery from physical weaknesses which made his acceptance of the
Lexington professorship of doubtful expediency, in the judgment of
friends.
He never willed to be eloquent in the lecture-room or brilliant in
society in his life as teacher, church official, and neighbor there
was no evidence of the personal magnetism which was to make him the
soul and genius of the Confederate army. While carrying into every
detail of daily existence the military law of system and fidelity, he
was aggressive in nothing. The grave, quiet gentleman who was never
late in class, never negligent of the minutest professional duty, who
was always punctual at religious services, and never missed a meeting
of the Faculty of the V. M. I., or of the deacons of the Presbyterian
Church, was reckoned a good Christian and upright citizen, exemplary
in domestic and social relations--perhaps a trifle ultra-conscientious
in some particulars. But for the prevalency of orthodoxy in "the
Valley" he would have been considered eccentric in his religious views
and practice. He established a Sunday-school for the negroes and
superintended it in person; he gave a tenth of his substance to the
church; he "weighed his lightest utterances in the balances of the
sanctuary;" he would not pick up an apple in a neighbor's orchard
unless he had permission to take it; he never wrote or read letters on
Sunday, or mailed one that must travel on that day to reach its
destination; used neither tobacco, tea, nor coffee, and during the war
was "more afraid of a glass of wine than of Federal bullets." His
reverence for women was deep and unfeigned; he was gentleness itself
to little children; bowed down before the hoary head, and never sank
the lover in the husband. All that he had and all he was, belonged
first to GOD, then to his wife.
"His person was tall, erect, and muscular.... His bearing was
peculiarly English, and in the somewhat free society of America was
regarded as constrained. Every movement was quick and decisive; his
articulation was rapid, but distinct and emphatic, and often made the
impression of curtness. He practised a military exactness in all the
courtesies of society.... His brow was fair and expansive; his eyes
blue-gray, large, and expressive; his nose Roman and well-chiselled,
his cheeks were ruddy and sunburned; his mouth, firm and full of
meaning; his beard was brown"--is a pen-picture drawn by a brother
officer.
On December 2, 1859, a corps of cadets was sent to Charlestown, Va.,
to secure law and order during the execution of John Brown. Major
Jackson's graphic description of the scene in a letter to his wife
contains this passage:
"I was much impressed with the thought that before me stood a man in
the full vigor of health, who must in a few moments enter eternity. I
sent up the petition that he might be saved."
An officer upon duty, he saw the terrible spectacle with Cromwellian
composure, but the man behind the impassive mask was upon his knees in
prayer for the human soul. Under date of January 21, 1860, he writes:
"Viewing things at Washington from human appearances we have great
reason for alarm, but my trust is in God. I cannot think that He will
permit the madness of men to interfere so materially with the
Christian labors of this country at home and abroad."
She who, of all the world, knew him best records:
"He never was a secessionist and maintained that it was better for the
South to fight for her rights in the Union than out of it.... At this
time (March 16, 1861) he was strongly for the Union. At the same time,
he was a firm State's rights man."
At dawn, April 21st, he received an order from the Governor of
Virginia to report to him immediately at Richmond, bringing the corps
of cadets with him. At 1 o'clock P.M. he bade a final farewell to home
and Lexington.
On June 4th he writes incidentally to his "Little One" from Harper's
Ferry:
"The troops here have been divided into brigades, and the Virginia
forces under General Johnston constitute the First Brigade, of which I
am in command."
This brigade was to share with the commanding officers the _sobriquet_
by which he is known better than under his real name. In the battery
attached to it were forty-nine graduates of colleges, besides nineteen
divinity students.
From the first victory of Manassas (June 21, 1861), when General Bee
turned the tide of battle by shouting to the wavering lines, "Look at
Jackson, standing like a stone wall! Rally behind the Virginians!" to
the fatal blunder of May 2, 1863, "Stonewall" Jackson was the flashing
star that guided the Confederate armies to glorious success. His faith
in the God of armies was so blended with the conviction that he was a
chosen instrument in the Omnipotent hand to repel invasion and secure
an honorable peace for his beloved State, that his sublime confidence
infused officers and men.
A fragment of a camp ballad, popular in 1862, will give a faint idea
of the enthusiasm excited by the "praying fighter:"
Silence! ground arms! kneel all! caps off!
Old Blue-light's going to pray.
Strangle the fool that dares to scoff!
Attention! 'tis his way!
Appealing from his native sod
In _forma pauperis_ to God;
"Lay bare Thine arm--stretch forth Thy rod!
Amen!" _That's_ Stonewall's way.
Love-letters to his "only sweetheart," written in camp, in the saddle,
from smoking battle-fields, red with the blood of the slain, reveal a
heart as tender as it was stout, faith that never failed, the courage
of a lion, the unspoiled simplicity of a child.
Our last extract from war papers is significant of what might have
been but for the fall of the South's greatest chieftain at the most
critical period of the struggle:
"Jackson alone stands forth the one advocate of 'ceaseless invasion'
as our 'safest hope,' the first conviction of his mind and a policy in
accord with Southern feeling."
Mrs. Jackson joined her husband at his quarters near Fredericksburg,
bringing with her the baby-girl he had never seen until then, on April
20, 1863. On the 23d the little one, held in the proud father's arms,
was baptized by the regimental chaplain. Nine golden days followed the
reunion of the loving family before Hooker crossed the Rappahannock in
force. Wife and baby were hurried off to Richmond after "a hasty,
tender adieu," and the battle of Chancellorsville began.
"From the opening of this campaign," says Jackson's biographer, "it
was observed that a wondrous change came over him. From the quiet,
patient, but arduous laborer over his daily tasks, he seemed
transformed into a thunderbolt of war."
During the three awful days of Chancellorsville "the thunderbolt"
seemed omnipresent to the Confederate soldiers, oftenest in the
hottest of the fight, always where he was most sorely needed.
On the afternoon of May 2d, in making his way from one part of the
field to another with his staff and couriers, they were mistaken for
Federal cavalry, and a volley of musketry was poured in upon them,
wounding General Jackson mortally.
On the way to the rear a second disaster overtook the doomed band. A
Federal battery opened a fire across the road, and the devoted
attendants, laying the wounded chief in a shallow ditch, covered him
with their own bodies while the tempest of shot tore up the earth on
all sides of them. The danger was averted by a change in the range of
the guns, and the mournful march was resumed. Meeting a North Carolina
general who "feared," in reply to Jackson's eager questions, "that his
troops could not maintain their position," the hero spoke out, in the
accustomed tone of command:
"You _must_ hold your ground, General Pender! you must hold your
ground, sir!"
It was his last military order. Some hours later he lay in his tent,
weak from pain and loss of blood, one arm gone, and his other wounds
dressed, when a messenger arrived in haste from General J. E. B.
Stuart, relating that he was contending against fearful odds in the
field, and asking for counsel from the friend who would never more
ride forth at his side. At the tidings of Stuart's extremity, General
Jackson aroused himself to interrogate the bearer of the message,
query succeeding query with characteristic impetuosity. Suddenly the
martial fire faded ashily, his eyes dulled into mournfulness.
"I don't know. I can't tell--" as if groping for thought or words.
"Tell General Stuart to do what _he_ thinks best."
The "resolve" he and others had thought invincible, the iron nerve
that had not quivered in the shock of fifty engagements, failed him.
Yet he rallied as the cannonading jarred his bed and insisted upon
receiving reports from hour to hour.
"Good! good!" he ejaculated, when told how his own brigade was
behaving. "The men will some day be proud to say to their children, 'I
was one of the Stonewall brigade.' The name belongs to them, not to
me. It was their steadfast heroism at First Manassas that earned it.
They are a noble body of men."
His wife and child were recalled in season to be with him for two days
immediately preceding his death. Although confident up to the dawn of
his last day on earth, that GOD still had work for him to do, and
would raise him up to do it, he received the news of his approaching
dissolution with perfect calmness.
"He preferred the will of GOD to his own;" he "would be infinitely the
gainer by the translation from earth to heaven." He gave his wife
instructions as to his burial and her future home; smiled radiantly,
in murmuring "Little darling! sweet one!" as the baby he had named for
his mother was lifted for the father's last kiss.
"Jackson must recover," General Lee had exclaimed upon hearing of his
condition. "God will not take him from us now that we need him so
much. Say to him that he has lost his left arm, _I my right!_"
Men who had not blenched when brought face to face with death that
menaced themselves, bowed to the earth, weeping like women, as mortal
weakness stole upon the strong right arm of the Confederacy. Without
the tent "the whole army was praying for him," while incoherent
sentences of command and inarticulate murmurings fell from his
lips--fainter with each utterance. The watchers thought speech and
consciousness gone forever, when the voice that had pealed like the
blast of Roland in charge and rally, sounded through the hushed
chamber, sweet, distinct, and full of cheer, but in dreamy
inflections:
_"Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees!_"
Forced march, and midnight raid, and mad rush of battle were over.
Victorious Greatheart slept upon the field.
[Signature of the author.]
[Illustration: Jackson at Chancellorsville.]