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‘I’m not a military man and so cannot judge myself. But my Grandfather always said the Lord took Stonewall Jackson because other wise the South would have won and the Lord new it was not right that we should win.’

Many believe the war would have ended sooner had Jackson lived. His tactics worked well against politicians and officers with political connections to gain them a combat command, but would have been disasterous later in the war, specifically two months after his untimely death, at Gettysburg.

He’d have charged Culp’s and Cemetary on July 1st, 1863.

And gotten his ass handed to him.

I’m not a military man and so cannot judge myself. But my Grandfather always said the Lord took Stonewall Jackson because other wise the South would have won and the Lord new it was not right that we should win.

People back in that time had some strong religious beliefs. My grandfather used to joke about some of our ancestors being Quakers with guns and attitudes. For them, it wasn't about states' rights or anything else politically related - they joined up with the Union because they were sure God was going to bring His wrath down on the South for having enslaved so many Christians (and I'm sure that those people living in Georgia and that area around there probably felt God was punishing them when Sherman passed through).

Our best guess is that somewhere in the 1840s or 1850s, they were all members of the same church and had one very intense preacher who convinced them that all of the slaveowners and their supporters were going to Hell for owning Christians. We have a few suspects and the few pre-Civil War letters we have show a definite change in attitude amongst some in the family in the 1850s.

If these people were alive now, I'm only half joking when I say they'd probably have their own compound. I shouldn't make light of their beliefs - enslaving Christians was a very evil and un-Christian thing to be doing, but they were out there. Had any of them come across any captured Confederates that actually owned slaves (there weren't that many in uniform that owned slaves), it would not surprise me if they had executed them. They were that far out there.