# Southern Historical Society Papers/Volume 40/Stonewall Jackson

STONEWALL JACKSON.
Address of William A. Anderson Upon the Laying of the Corner- Stone of the Equestrian Statue of Stonewall Jackson in Richmond, Virginia, on June 3, 1915, at the Request of the Stonewall Jackson Monument Association.
I desire, in simple language, to speak briefly of the great and good man whom the statue to be erected here is to commemorate.
Simplicity of speech becomes any remarks about one whose simplicity of character was so marked a feature of his greatness.
Nor will, nor need the truth be colored in his eulogy.
Extravagance of statement would rather detract from than add to his moral and intellectual stature.
There have been many delineations of the character of Stonewall Jackson—some true to nature and to the facts, some so exaggerated in one direction as to be fanciful, and some so distorted in another direction as to make him appear grotesque.
To those who knew him best in peace, to his family, his pastor, his servants, his friends, and the poor; to those who knew him best in war, the members of his staff, the officers who served under or with him, and were thrown intimately with him, in camp, on the march, and upon the field of battle; to the soldiers of his brigade, division, and army, who, through two years of tremendous effort and glorious achievement, bivouacked, ​
marched, and fought under his command; to the faultless chieftain to whose exalted character, transcendent abilities, and well-nigh unerring judgment he yielded the utmost devotion of his great soul, Robert E. Lee, who returned that affection and confidence in unstinted measure; to none of these was Stonewall Jackson ever grotesque.
Whatever his peculiarities, and he had some which were marked, they were no more than idiosyncrasies which are sometimes the companions of genius and of great natures, and no more impaired the dignity and true greatness of the man than does the foam upon the limpid waters of the rapidly moving river lessen its usefulness or its loveliness as it flows in matchless beauty to the sea.
We learn from his biographers that from his childhood and on through his boyhood and youth he exhibited those qualities of courage, indomitable strength of will, self-respecting decision of character, truthfulness, frankness, unfaltering faith, and a high sense of honor, which characterized his conduct throughout his adult life, and were afterwards illustrated upon fields of action which his genius has made immortal.
From his very boyhood his life was dominated by a sense of duty to others and duty to himself. From those early years he was animated by a supreme purpose "to make himself the very greatest of which he was capable," and he placed no very circumscribed limits upon those capabilities.
Some notion of his extraordinary self-discipline and of the ideals which then actuated him is afforded by the admirable code of maxims and rules of conduct which, while a cadet at West Point, he compiled for his own guidance.
Of these maxims the following was conspicuous and most characteristic: ​"You may be whatever you resolve to be."
In harmony with this maxim he, after his success at West Point had been assured, wrote to a friend that "one could always do what he willed to accomplish."
He was as remarkable as a boy as he was as a youth and as a man.
Although, while an infant, deprived of the loving care and protection of both of his parents, and left penniless and dependent upon the generosity of relatives upon whom he had no special claim and upon his own efforts and resources, he ever rose superior to the conditions of adverse fortune, and, with an amazing confidence, encountered and surmounted obstacles at which a less courageous nature would have been appalled.
The brave struggle which he made to master the course of study and training at West Point, for the acquisition of which he was exceedingly poorly prepared, the distinguished success which by dint of hard, persistent, and unremitting effort, and conscientious attention to duty he achieved there, all of this valuable training and discipline and attainment were not only evidence of the superior moral and intellectual character of the man, but served to develop and strengthen those traits and qualities which constitute the elements of true greatness.
As has been repeatedly said of him: "The boy was father to the man"; and so those who knew his previous history must have been in some measure prepared for the distinguished career of the young officer in the Mexican War and the recognition which was accorded by his commanding officers to his conspicuous courage, skill, and meritorious conduct in that service; so that, entering the United States Army at the beginning of General Scott's marvelous Mexican campaign as a second lieutenant, he had been raised by three successive promotions to major by brevet.
He Rose Rapidly to Fame
   "No other officer in the whole army in Mexico was promoted so often for meritorious conduct or made so great a stride in rank." (Dabney's Life of Stonewall Jackson, page 51.)
His courage, capacity, and valuable and efficient services in that war were repeatedly and conspicuously commended in the reports of his superior officers, as, for instance, by Captain (afterwards Major-General) J. B. Magruder in his report upon the battle of Chapultepec, in which he refers to young Jackson in the following terms:
   "If devotion, industry, talent, and gallantry are the highest qualities of a soldier, then he is entitled to the distinction which their possession confers."
Such was the distinction which Jackson had attained when he came to Lexington to serve as a professor in the Virginia Military Institute.
The principal facts as to his career as a cadet and as an officer in the army were well known to the superintendent and officers and members of the Board of Visitors of the Institute, to members of the corps of cadets, and to the people of Lexington generally, of which community he was a citizen and resident during most of the decade preceding the War between the States.
The manly form, soldierly bearing, earnest but kindly countenance, and gentle manners of this modest and dutiful citizen were familiar to the people of that community as he daily walked about their streets or to and from the Virginia Military Institute from and to his home in the town.
Though he did not possess the graces of a Bayard or a Sidney, he was by no means ungainly or unattractive in his appearance, his bearing, or his address.
On the contrary, his was the presence, the manner, and the countenance to inspire confidence and command esteem.
It is true that he was not a graceful horseback rider, but ​there was hardly a better rider in the army, as any who saw the security with which he sat his horse when rapidly riding along the cheering ranks of its soldiers, or when hasting to reach some important engagement or point of observation, will attest. It was impossible to see him as he daily went about his duties without being impressed with the fact that his was no ordinary personality and he no ordinary man.
There was something in his expression of countenance, and his mien, which indicated that behind that plain and kindly exterior there was a tremendous reserve force.
Though few, if any, then dreamed that he possessed the quickness and grasp of intellect, the supreme capacity for leadership, and the genius for war which he afterwards exhibited, there were those who knew him well who placed a very high estimate upon his capacity and who believed that if he ever was given opportunity to serve his country in war his career would be illustrious.
He was, in those piping times of peace, recognized at Lexington as, and was sometimes characterized as being, "a born soldier." The time came in a few years when he was considered by his old friends and neighbors in that community, as he was afterwards aptly designated by his Scotch admirers across the sea, "a heavenborn soldier."
As indicating the estimation in which Jackson's capacity and abilities as a soldier and a commander in war was held, in 1861, by those who knew him, it is only needed to recall that when Governor Letcher, who was a citizen of Lexington and knew Jackson well, came to select an officer to command the post of Harper's Ferry, then regarded as second in importance to none in the then theater of war, he selected Major Jackson for that responsible command in preference to several officers of higher rank in the military service of the State, including one or more major-generals and brigadier-generals.
In fact, there was already a major-general and at least one brigadier at Harper's Ferry when, in May, 1861, Major, or, as was his advanced rank by contemporaneous promotion, Colonel, T. J. Jackson, was, on the nomination of Virginia's great War ​Governor, with the approval of his advisory Council and upon the confirmation of the sovereign convention of the Commonwealth, placed in supreme command of the largest army, which had at that time been marshaled in the State at the most important post upon her military frontier.
It is a farther significant fact that the Council upon whose advice Major Jackson was chosen for this responsible position consisted of General Francis H. Smith, the Superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute; Commodore Matthew F. Maury, John J. Allen, the presiding Justice of Virginia's highest Court; and Lieutenant-Governor Robert L. Montague.
General Smith was, of course, intimately acquainted with Major Jackson's character, talents, and record, as was also Judge Allen, who was for many years a citizen, resident, and distinguished representative of Clarksburg and of Harrison County, in Northwestern Virginia, the home county of Stonewall Jackson and his family.
While Jackson's career, character, and talents were well known to a great number of people in and out of Virginia in 1861, there were doubtless many intelligent people, citizens of the State, who knew little or nothing of his merits, for it is narrated that when his nomination as colonel in command of the army and the post at Harper's Ferry came up in the Convention for confirmation, some member inquired:
   "Who is this Major Jackson to whom it is proposed to commit this responsible post?"
To which inquiry Samuel McDowell Moore, a distinguished delegate to the Convention from Rockbridge, who was a neighbor of Major Jackson and knew him well, made this now historic reply:
   "I will tell you who Major Jackson is. He is a man who, if you order him to hold a post, will never leave it alive, to be occupied by the enemy."
And now the civilized world knows what manner of man Major Jackson was, for within two years he wrote his name across the heavens.
Jackson's Place in History
While Jackson was startling the world by his victories, and still more since death untimely closed his great career, the question has been raised as to what is and what will be his place in history. Eminent soldiers, students, and some of them makers of history, have given this inquiry careful consideration, and have assigned to Jackson very high rank among the great captains of the world. Colonel Henderson, the accomplished English soldier, the author of that admirable "Life of Jackson" which is used as a text-book in some of the foremost military schools of the world, one of the most intelligent and competent of military critics, gives his answer to this question in the following language, which is so just and so true that we may safely adopt it as our own:
   "So far as his opportunities had permitted, he had shown himself in no way inferior to the greatest generals of the century—Wellington, Napoleon, and Lee. That Jackson was equal to the highest demands of strategy his deeds and conceptions show; that he was equal to the task of handling a large army on the field of battle must be left to conjecture; but throughout the whole of his soldier's life he was never entrusted with any detached mission which he failed to execute with complete success. "No general made fewer mistakes. No general so persistently outwitted his opponents. No general better understood the use of ground or the value of time. No general was more highly endowed with courage, both physical and moral, and none ever secured to a greater degree the trust and affection of his troops."
   "And yet, so upright was his life, so profound his faith, so exquisite his tenderness, that Jackson's many victories are almost his least claim to be ranked among the world's true heroes."
An affirmative answer to any question as to Jackson's supreme ability as a commander of armies must be deduced from the tremendous facts thus forcibly grouped by Colonel Henderson.
A similar conclusion would be inferred from a significant statement made by another distinguished and impartial military critic, Lieutenant-General Richard Taylor, who, in a paper upon "Stonewall Jackson and the Valley Campaign of 1862" published in the North American Review in 1878, says:
   "What limit to set to his ability I know not, for he was ever superior to occasion."
Again and again in his military career, notably in his Valley Campaign, in the campaign and battles of Second Manassas, in the campaign and battle of Sharpsburg, and in the campaign and battle of Chancellorsville, he exhibited a personal and physical prowess which was never surpassed by any of the great captains and born leaders of men in all the campaigns and battles of history. Not by Napoleon, nor Cromwell, nor Gustavus Adolphus, nor yet by Caesar, nor indeed by Hannibal, nor even by Alexander, the Great Macedonian, whose physical and personal prowess, surpassing the courage of ordinary mortals, have been the marvel of mankind through more than twenty-two centuries.
It is difficult to compare Jackson with the other great captains of history, for he was so different from most of them. The equal of any in moral and physical courage, he was vastly ​superior to some in his exalted moral and Christian character and in the pure ideals which dominated his life.
With him, as a very part of his being, was his trust in God; his religion, which was not only a principle, but an essential principle of his nature.
Faith in the unseen and eternal was far more potential with him than his faith in anything visible or temporal.
His religion was the greatest thing in the universe to him, as it was the most powerful influence in his life. It is doubtful whether a more sincerely devout man ever lived.
And yet in all of his religion there was nothing of cant, nor sanctimoniousness, nor gloom, nothing of bigotry or acerbity, but the utmost charity and deference for the faiths and convictions of others.
His goodness and greatness need not be gauged by the qualities or measures of other men to demonstrate his merit.
Where he differs from the great commanders of other ages it is generally in particulars in 'which he is superior to them.
At all events, we are content with him as he is, and would not, if we could, exchange him for any who have been mentioned in comparison with him.
There is a name which we may mention lovingly along with his, but not in contrast—the name of that majestic leader and born king of men, Robert E. Lee, to whom Stonewall Jackson cheerfully yielded the precedence.
United as they were in their lives, diverse as they were in their transcendent genius, kindred as they were in the unselfishness of their ambition, the nobility of their ideals, the righteousness of their conduct, the purity of their motives, and the greatness of their souls, each the complement and the supplement of the other, and each generously recognizing the abilities and the merits of the other, we, their followers, can make no comparison of their goodness and greatness.
We can only yield to each the sincere homage of our admiration and affection.
​If we are asked: "What was the secret of Jackson's hold upon and command over the affections and cheerful obedience of his soldiers?" the answer, which will be confirmed by any who served under him and knew him well in war, is, that he won the confidence and love of his soldiers by his intelligent attention to providing for the wants, and, as far as consistent with the arduous service which he exacted of them, for the comfort and welfare of his soldiers; by his sharing with them any hardships which he called upon them to endure; by the sleepless, tireless, and sometimes fierce and inexorable energy with which he conducted the movements which he directed against the enemy, and by the skilful and brilliant strategy with which he outgeneraled his opponents and surprised both friend and foe. A very brief service under him convinced his soldiers that "Old Jack knew what he was about" and was a consummate Master of the Art of War.
But it was upon the field of battle that he made the deepest impression upon his men. There was then that in his presence, his personality, and his bearing, a lighting up of his countenance with a glorious enthusiasm that seemed to almost transfigure his usually placid features, which inspired his soldiers with something of his own heroic and indomitable purpose to triumph. He then seemed to be the very incarnation of righteous and glorious war.
It was, in no small measure, the inspiration of his potential personality which impelled the brigade which was honored by his leadership and affections to deeds of valor which have enshrined its name in history with that of its immortal commander, and given the "Stonewall Brigade" some right to live through coming ages along with the Macedonian Phalanx of Alexander, the Tenth Legion of Caesar, the Paladins of Charlemagne, the Ironsides of Cromwell, and the Old Guard of Napoleon.
No one can carefully study the story of Jackson's life, as sweetly told by his devoted wife, or by his friend and comrade in arms, Rev. Doctor and Major R. L. Dabney, or as graphically ​graphically and more fully narrated by Colonel Henderson, his greatest biographer, without being impressed with two facts in reference to his mental characteristics:
First, that his intellectual development and growth were steady, gradual, and persistent from his youth onwards, and were very marked during the last years of his life, and particularly after he entered upon his service in the War between the States. Both the extent and the ratio of his mental growth were apparently greatly accelerated during those two years of incessant occupation and great responsibility.
Like Cromwell, and other men whose marvelous abilities have been first shown after they had reached the prime of manhood, Jackson seems, until the occasion for their exhibition arose, slow in manifesting some of the extraordinary talents with which he was endowed, chiefly, doubtless, because the occasion for their display had not sooner arisen. One thing is certain, namely, that in the last two crowded years of his life he manifested a wonderful vigor, capacity, and quickness of intellect, of the existence of which few, if any, of his acquaintances had any conception before his entrance upon that war. With some, the circumstance that some of these powers were not exhibited by him in equal measure during his previous career has been taken as evidence that they never existed. But the proof that he was, in 1861, 1862, and 1863, a man of extraordinary ability and of unquestioned genius are overwhelming.
Second: Another well-authenticated fact in reference to his mental phenomena, is, that his mind acted with greatly increased rapidity, activity, and power upon the battlefield. When confronted with great danger and charged with the great responsibility of directing the movements of troops under fire, he seemed to be given an almost supernal ken; his mind, under the stimulus of the excitement and peril of the conflict, apparently acted with calmness and coolness, and yet with the celerity of lightning- and the certainty and precision of a rifle ball driven straight to its mark.
It was not so much that his warrior spirit, his gaudiam certaminis, under such conditions transformed the ordinarily ​staid and quiet gentleman into the very soul incarnate of war, as that the incentives and stimulus of such a martial occasion aroused his faculties and intensified and developed talents and aptitudes which were already existent but somewhat dormant in his nature.
These powers of observation, of reasoning from known facts, quickly comprehending a situation and promptly deciding upon a course of conduct, were notably developed in Jackson by every occasion for their exercise; and as the war advanced his mentality and his capacity for efficient service were steadily strengthened and increased, so that he was a stronger and a more capable man in May, 1863, than he could have been in May, 1862, or in 1861.
Accordingly, it is probably true that some of the inadequate estimates which have been placed upon Jackson's mental capacity have been based upon a misconception or a too superficial study of the facts as to his intellectual traits and attainments.
Although Jackson's life was ended before he knew whether the cause for which he fought would be crowned with success or be overwhelmed in disaster and defeat, and before he had reached the zenith of his powers, that life was by no means a failure.
No, it was, beyond the capacity of human language to define, a glorious success.
Rising, as he did, superior to circumstance and to temporary conditions, his life has been a priceless heritage to his countrymen and to mankind.
The example which he gave the world of self-sacrificing devotion to principle and to country, of loyal obedience to duty, and unquestioning faith in God, the unsurpassed manifestations of courage which he exhibited, and the radiance with which his genius illumined the fields of his triumphs, compel the admiration alike of friend and foe, and constitute a part of the patrimony of glory, not of Virginia and the Confederate South alone, but of the American people and the human race.
These are the unspoken lessons of his life; but there comes ​to us from the grave that solemn injunction expressed by him in those words, which must go ringing down the centuries, and, I trust, be remembered by his countrymen whenever there may be the temptation to sacrifice honor to ease, or liberty to safety:
      "What is life without honor?
      "Degradation is worse than death.
      "We must think of the living and of those who are to come after us, and see that by God's blessing we transmit to them the freedom we have ourselves inherited."
And so, in the coming generations and ages, may the statue of our beloved commander, which shall be erected here, be a perpetual reminder of the precious lessons of his life; and may Virginians be ever so obedient to the heavenly vision that in time of stress and trial, when the well being, the virtue, and the liberties of their country shall be imperilled, some future heroic soldier of righteousness will point his countrymen to the figure of Jackson, as it will forever stand out from the pages of history, and again utter that now immortal rallying cry:
"Look! there stands Jackson like a stone wall!
"Rally behind the Virginians!"