Inventing Stonewall Jackson
Inventing Stonewall Jackson

Author: Wallace Hettle

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2011-05-06

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0807139378

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Historians' attempts to understand legendary Confederate General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson have proved uneven at best and often contentious. An occasionally enigmatic and eccentric college professor before the Civil War, Jackson died midway through the conflict, leaving behind no memoirs and relatively few surviving letters or documents. In Inventing Stonewall Jackson, Wallace Hettle offers an innovative and distinctive approach to interpreting Stonewall by examining the lives and agendas of those authors who shape our current understanding of General Jackson. Newspaper reporters, friends, relatives, and fellow soldiers first wrote about Jackson immediately following the Civil War. Most of them, according to Hettle, used portions of their own life stories to frame that of the mythic general. Hettle argues that the legend of Jackson's rise from poverty to power was likely inspired by the rags-to-riches history of his first biographer, Robert Lewis Dabney. Dabney's own successes and Presbyterian beliefs probably shaped his account of Jackson's life as much as any factual research. Many other authors inserted personal values into their stories of Stonewall, perplexing generations of historians and writers. Subsequent biographers contributed their own layers to Jackson's myth and eventually a composite history of the general came to exist in the popular imagination. Later writers, such as the liberal suffragist Mary Johnston, who wrote a novel about Jackson, and the literary critic Allen Tate, who penned a laudatory biography, further shaped Stonewall's myth. As recently as 2003, the film Gods and Generals, which featured Jackson as the key protagonist, affirmed the longevity and power of his image. Impeccable research and nuanced analysis enable Hettle to use American culture and memory to reframe the Stonewall Jackson narrative and provide new ways to understand the long and contended legacy of one of the Civil War's most popular Confederate heroes.

Rebel Yell
Rebel Yell

Author: S. C. Gwynne

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2014-09-30

Total Pages: 704

ISBN-13: 1451673302

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Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the epic New York Times bestselling account of how Civil War general Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson became a great and tragic national hero. Stonewall Jackson has long been a figure of legend and romance. As much as any person in the Confederate pantheon—even Robert E. Lee—he embodies the romantic Southern notion of the virtuous lost cause. Jackson is also considered, without argument, one of our country’s greatest military figures. In April 1862, however, he was merely another Confederate general in an army fighting what seemed to be a losing cause. But by June he had engineered perhaps the greatest military campaign in American history and was one of the most famous men in the Western world. Jackson’s strategic innovations shattered the conventional wisdom of how war was waged; he was so far ahead of his time that his techniques would be studied generations into the future. In his “magnificent Rebel Yell…S.C. Gwynne brings Jackson ferociously to life” (New York Newsday) in a swiftly vivid narrative that is rich with battle lore, biographical detail, and intense conflict among historical figures. Gwynne delves deep into Jackson’s private life and traces Jackson’s brilliant twenty-four-month career in the Civil War, the period that encompasses his rise from obscurity to fame and legend; his stunning effect on the course of the war itself; and his tragic death, which caused both North and South to grieve the loss of a remarkable American hero.

Such Troops as These
Such Troops as These

Author: Bevin Alexander

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2015-09-01

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 0425271307

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Acclaimed military historian Bevin Alexander offers a provocative analysis of Stonewall Jackson’s military genius and reveals how the Civil War might have ended differently if Jackson’s strategies had been adopted. The Civil War pitted the industrial North against the agricultural South, and remains one of the most catastrophic conflicts in American history. With triple the population and eleven times the industry, the Union had a decided advantage over the Confederacy. But one general had a vision that could win the War for the South—Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. Jackson believed invading the eastern states from Baltimore to Maine could divide and cripple the Union, forcing surrender, but failed to convince Confederate president Jefferson Davis or General Robert E. Lee. In Such Troops as These, Bevin Alexander presents a compelling case for Jackson as the greatest general in American history. Fiercely dedicated to the cause of Southern independence, Jackson would not live to see the end of the War. But his military legacy lives on and finds fitting tribute in this book.

Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War
Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War

Author: George Francis Robert Henderson

Publisher: Theclassics.Us

Published: 2013-09

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 9781230454030

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 edition. Excerpt: ... courage vanished. The Confederate position was undoubtedly strong, but it was not impregnable. The woods on either flank gave access under cover to the central ridge. The superior weight of his artillery was sufficient to cover an advance across the open; and although he was without maps or guide, the country was not so intersected as to render manoeuvring impracticable. In his official report Fremont lays great stress on the difficulties of the ground; but reading between the lines it is easy to see that it was the military situation which overburdened him. The vicious strategy of converging columns, where intercommunication is tedious and uncertain, once more exerted its paralysing influence. It was some days since he had heard anything of Shields. That general's dispatch, urging a combined attack, had not yet reached him: whether he had passed Luray or whether he had been already beaten, Fremont was altogether ignorant; and, in his opinion, it was quite possible that the whole of the Confederate army was before him. A more resolute commander would probably have decided that the shortest way out of the dilemma was a vigorous attack. If Shields was within hearing of the guns--and it was by no means improbable that he was --such a course was the surest means of securing his co-operation; and even if no help came, and the Confederates maintained their position, they might be so crippled as to be unable to pursue. Defeat would not have been an irreparable misfortune. Washington was secure. Banks, Saxton, and McDowell held the approaches; and if Fremont himself were beaten back, the strategic situation could be in no way affected. In fact a defeat, if it had followed an attack so CROSS KEYS 459 hotly pressed as to paralyse Jackson for the...

Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War, Vol. 1 of 2 (Classic Reprint)
Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War, Vol. 1 of 2 (Classic Reprint)

Author: G. F. R. Henderson

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2018-03-15

Total Pages: 514

ISBN-13: 9780364674376

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Excerpt from Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War, Vol. 1 of 2 The second lesson is that to hand over to civilians the administration and organisation of the army, whether in peace or in war, or to allow them to interfere in the selection of officers for command or promotion, is most injurious to efficiency; while, during war, to allow them, no matter how high their political capacity, to dictate to commanders in the field any line of conduct, after the army has once received its commission, is simply to ensure disaster. The first of these lessons is brought home to us by the opening events of this unreasonably protracted war. As I have elsewhere said, most military students will admit that had the United States been able, early in 1861, to put into the field, in addition to their volunteers, one Army Corps of regular troops, the war would have ended in a few months. An enormous expenditure of life and money, as well as a serious dislocation and loss of trade, would have been thus avoided. Never have the evil consequences which follow upon the absence of an adequate and well-organised army been more forcibly exemplified. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Stonewall Jackson, Beresford Hope, and the Meaning of the American Civil War in Britain
Stonewall Jackson, Beresford Hope, and the Meaning of the American Civil War in Britain

Author: Michael Turner

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2020-10-21

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 0807174491

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In this comprehensive examination of British sympathy for the South during and after the American Civil War, Michael J. Turner explores the ideas and activities of A. J. Beresford Hope—one of the leaders of the pro-Confederate lobby in Britain—to provide fresh insight into that seemingly curious allegiance. Hope and his associates cast famed Confederate general Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson as the embodiment of southern independence, courage, and honor, elevating him to the status of a hero in Britain. Historians have often noted that economic interest, political attitudes, and concern about Britain’s global reach and geostrategic position led many in the country to embrace the Confederate cause, but they have focused less on the social, cultural, and religious reasons enunciated by Hope and ostensibly represented by Jackson, factors Turner suggests also heightened British affinity for the South. During the war, Hope noticed a tendency among British people to view southerners as heroic warriors in their struggle against the North. He and his pro-southern followers shared and promoted this vision, framing Jackson as the personification of that noble mission and raising the general’s profile in Britain so high that they collected enough funds to construct a memorial to him after his death in 1863. Unveiled twelve years later in Richmond, Virginia, the statue stands today as a remarkable artifact of one of the lesser-known strands of British pro-Confederate ideology. Stonewall Jackson, Beresford Hope, and the Meaning of the American Civil War in Britain serves as the first in-depth analysis of Hope as a leading pro-southern activist and of Jackson’s reputation in Britain during and after the Civil War. It places the conflict in a transnational context that reveals the reasons British citizens formed bonds of solidarity with the southerners whom they perceived shared their social and cultural values.