(Disclaimer: This does not represent my current opinion regarding the Confederate cause and it's "Lost Cause Myth" which has survived for over 100 years. However, seeing the true colors and motivations of the Southern cause does not reduce my admiration for some of its finest leaders.)
It is an interesting dynamic, that history is generally not only written by the winners, but by the surviving winners. They get to selectively remember not only their decisions, but in some cases they will choose to discard facts when those facts conflict with their own pathway to glory. This is true of almost every war that has ever been fought, with the exception of the Civil War myth regarding the "Lost Cause". There are a multitude of reasons for this cause, too numerous to cover in this blog, but suffice it to say that rarely have the losers of a war controlled the narrative of a conflict like the Confederacy did after the Civil War. Yet, I'm getting off topic, because my subject for this week's blog is on one of the legendary commanders during that conflict, a man who didn't have the luxury to control his own storied place in history, General Stonewall Jackson.
With the same last name as the great General Lee himself, it would have been a natural pathway to embrace him as one of my favorite Southern generals of the past. However, I have always gravitated more toward Stonewall Jackson, perhaps because of his aggressive style displayed in several key battles in the war. But as I grew older and learned more about General Jackson, I discovered even more reasons to admire the man beyond the myth.
After surviving a difficult childhood including the loss of his father and childhood home, Jackson attended West Point University. Older than many of the other students, he initially struggled with the curriculum and endured frequent ridicule for his economic status and relatively poor education. However, Jackson worked hard and eventually met with academic success, graduating in 1846.
The Mexican War was just starting and he was sent to Mexico as a lieutenant with the 1st U.S. Artillery. He quickly earned a reputation for toughness and bravery, and by the war’s end in 1848 he held the rank of brevet major. Jackson continued his military service until he accepted a professorship at the Virginia Military Institute in 1851.
Jackson spent 10 years as a professor of artillery tactics and natural philosophy (similar to modern-day physics) at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington. He was better at teaching artillery than natural philosophy, and was disliked by some cadets for his brusqueness, lack of sympathy and eccentric behavior. Students mocked him for his hypochondria and his habit of keeping one arm elevated to hide a perceived discrepancy in the length of his limbs. (This habit continued during his time in the Civil War as well)
His adult life, like his childhood, was filled with death and despair, his first wife died during childbirth, and after remarrying in 1857, his second wife gave birth to a daughter who lived less than a month. Jackson's one surviving daughter, Julia Laura (1862 - 89), was born less than a year before her father’s death. Despite these personal losses, Jackson was a man of devout faith, and intense self-discipline, a trait he expected all who served under his command to adhere to as well.
Despite his personal desire for Virginia to remain in the Union, after Virginia seceded he chose to serve his State versus the Federal government in the Confederate army. Jackson served only briefly as a colonel before receiving a promotion to brigadier general. Jackson earned his nickname at the First Battle of Bull Run (also known as Manassas) in July 1861 when he rushed his troops forward to close a gap in the line against a determined Union attack. Upon observing Jackson, one of his fellow generals reportedly said, “Look, men, there is Jackson standing like a stone wall!”–a comment that spawned Jackson’s nickname. Jackson was commissioned a major general in October 1861.
In the spring of 1862, Jackson spearheaded the Shenandoah Valley Campaign, firmly establishing himself as a strong and independent commander. The Confederate army’s high command had charged him with the task of defending western Virginia from an invasion by Union troops. With an army of some 15,000 to 18,000 troops, Jackson repeatedly outmaneuvered a superior Union force of more than 60,000 men. Jackson’s army moved so quickly during the campaign that they dubbed themselves “foot cavalry.”
President Abraham Lincoln (1809-65) had split the Union army into three parts, and Jackson used his mobility to attack and confuse the divided forces over the course of the campaign. He won several key victories over armies of larger size. By the campaign’s end in June, he had earned the admiration of Union generals. Jackson had prevented the Northerners from taking the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, and had done so in the face of unfavorable odds.
In October of 1862, General Lee reorganized his Army of Virginia into two corps. After being promoted to lieutenant general, Jackson took command of the second corps, leading them to a decisive victory at the Battle of Fredericksburg. His widely publicized exploits had elevated him to legendary status among Southern soldiers and citizens alike. Jackson’s bravery and success inspired devotion from his soldiers, but to his officers, he was known as overly secretive and difficult to please. He frequently punished his officers for relatively minor violations of military discipline and rarely discussed his plans with them. Rather, they were expected to obey his orders without question.
Jackson achieved a whole new level of success at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May of 1863, when he struck General Joseph Hooker’s Army of the Potomac from the rear. The attack created so many casualties that, within a few days, Hooker had no choice but to withdraw his troops.
On May 2, 1863 during the battle of Chancellorsville, Jackson was accidentally fired upon by his own men and was shot with three .57 caliber bullets. Jackson was wounded mortally. Jackson was taken to a field hospital where his left arm was amputated, but it was not enough to save him. He died at 3:15 pm the next day. It was a great loss for the Confederate army. Robert E. Lee was most upset of all because Jackson was one of his best friends and greatest generals. When Robert E. Lee heard of the passing of Jackson he said, “Jackson lost his left arm, but I have lost my right.”
“That old house witnessed the downfall of the Southern Confederacy,” said former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George after visiting the Stonewall Jackson Shrine in 1923. “No doubt the history of America would have to be rewritten has ‘Stonewall’ Jackson lived.”
The most common assumption, of course, is that if Stonewall Jackson hadn’t gotten shot at the Battle of Chancellorsville, then Gettysburg, and perhaps the war, would have turned out differently.
And indeed, that’s true—because there probably wouldn’t have been a Gettysburg to begin with.
How events would’ve played out in the woods of the Wilderness on the night of May 2, or how Jackson might have contended with his illness in the wake of battle–that all seems forgotten when people conjure the sense of Jackson-possibility: “If Jackson hadn’t gotten shot….” They hardly ever consider the immediate short-term picture because they’re already fast-forwarding two months ahead to July of 1863.
“If Jackson hadn’t gotten shot,” they suppose, “Gettysburg would have turned out differently.”
In most instances, that’s an implied condemnation of Richard Ewell’s performance on the first day of the battle and his decision not to take Cemetery Hill. Jackson, the assumption goes, would have found an assault there “practicable;” Ewell did not. It is, doubtless, the most second-guess decision of the war.
It’s a major assumption to think Jackson would have assaulted the hill—although people make that assumption all the time. They assume, because of Jackson’s aggressive nature, that he’d have pushed forward even though the military situation—as Ewell very well knew—looked questionable. True, Jackson tended to push his men forward, sometimes (such as at Fredericksburg) when it was foolhardy to do so, but he also knew that not every position could be successfully assailed. “My men have sometimes failed to take a position,” he once told Heros von Borcke, Jeb Stuart’s chief of staff, “but to defend one—never!”
It’s safer to assume Jackson would’ve looked for a way to flank the Federal position—a Jackson trademark if ever there was one—and would have gone after Culp’s Hill instead. That’s exactly what Ewell tried to do. A recalcitrant Jubal Early, who refused to move although Ewell ordered him to, let Culp’s Hill fall into Union hands. It’s hard to envision Jackson letting Early getting away with that kind of insubordination.
Ever-after, in the memory wars of the post-war years, Early tried to cover up his foot-dragging by shifting the attention from Culp’s Hill to Cemetery Hill and the blame from himself to Ewell. Ewell died in 1872, unable to defend his own reputation from Early’s assaults, which lasted for another twenty-two years. (Remember our discussion about who writes the history . . . )
Be all that as it may, there’s one salient fact underlying all Jackson-related scenarios in Gettysburg that everyone seems to forget. Lee reorganized the Army of Northern Virginia into three corps following Jackson’s wounding at Chancellorsville because he didn’t feel comfortable elevating someone to take Jackson’s place. Instead, he made his army’s corps smaller and easier for his newly promoted lieutenant generals to handle.
“I have for the past year felt that the corps of this army were too large for one commander,” Lee wrote to Jefferson Davis on May 20, 1863. “Nothing prevented my proposing to you to reduce their size & increase their number, but my inability to recommend commanders…. The loss of Jackson from the command of one half the army seems to me a good opportunity to remedy this evil.”
In other words, the corps were to big, but he didn’t have anyone he felt comfortable promoting; the loss of Jackson forced his hand. Had Jackson lived, then, Lee would not have had any incentive for making the shuffle.
Down the chain of command, Hill would have still then been in charge of his division, so Henry Heth, who stumbled into Gettysburg, would’ve still commanded his brigade and, consequently, would not have been in a position to stumble anywhere.
With only two corps instead of the three, Lee’s orders would have necessarily been different, even assuming he decided to still move north into Pennsylvania, which he did to avoid having to send men west to relieve Pemberton under siege at Vicksburg. It’s likely, still facing that same pressure, Lee would have chosen to undertake offensive operations—but with different marching orders, there’s absolutely no way to tell how things would’ve transpired.
So, to assume things would have been different had Jackson been at Gettysburg is to assume the armies would’ve been in Gettysburg at all—and that premise alone has serious faults.
The great What-If’s that surround Jackson’s death are central to Lost Cause mythology, and they have become as much a part of the legend of Stonewall Jackson as anything he ever did in life. “His name alone is worth ten-thousand men,” a Union soldier once said—and because of that, his absence still makes all the difference.
