The poem honors the famed Confederate Army officer Lieutenant General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, and was written by John Williamson Palmer (1825–1906), who stated that he had written the ballad on September 16, 1862; however, Miller &amp; Beacham, who published the song in 1862, stated that the song was found on the body of a Confederate sergeant after the First Battle of Winchester, May 25, 1862. It is possible this alternative origin story was concocted to prevent Palmer, a Northerner, from being arrested as a Confederate sympathizer.