Posted on 11/11/2002 7:12:48 AM PST by stainlessbanner
BLACKSBURG, Va. - Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, perhaps the most feared and respected of Confederate generals, was by most accounts an odd person to have over for dinner.
Awkward, with a thin, almost feminine voice, Jackson was incapable of chatty conversation. He obsessed about digestion and was known to bring his own food -- crusts of stale bread, usually -- to parties.
Aside from his military accomplishments, Jackson's eccentricities are what many acquaintances remembered after his death in 1863. But there was much they didn't see.
Jackson's "Book of Maxims," a collection of slogans and bits of wisdom he compiled as a young officer, reveals the kind of man Jackson hoped to become before the country was split by the Civil War. The book was believed to have disappeared until about 13 years ago, and copies are now available.
"Too often, the popular perception of Jackson was of a religious zealot, a loose cannon, a hypochondriac, the village idiot," said Jackson biographer James Robertson Jr., who rediscovered the maxims in a mislabeled box at Tulane University.
"This book shows he was not. He was a very determined man. He was a man who wanted to be liked, who wanted to be part of society if only he could learn how."
Jackson grew up the orphaned son of a failed lawyer in the mountains of what is now West Virginia. He had less than a fourth-grade education when he entered West Point, and his time in New York was spent mostly alone.
"He'd be invited to an afternoon tea, and he'd go and just stand against the wall," Robertson said. "He didn't know what else to do."
His maxims, which he collected in his late 20s from books he was reading and from his own experience, provide a rare view into Jackson's mind at this awkward time.
There were tips for meeting friends: "A man is known by the company he keeps" and "Never weary your company by talking too long or too frequently."
Longer entries dealt with one of his greater difficulties, how to socialize: "Sit or stand still while another is speaking to you -- (do) not dig in the earth with your foot nor take your knife from your pocket & pare your nales (sic) nor other such actions."
Some of his maxims were meant for inspiration. The most famous, "You may be what ever you will resolve to be," is now displayed on an archway at Virginia Military Institute, where Jackson was a professor.
VMI Cadets at Stonewall Jackson's grave, ca. 1868. From the VMI Archives photograph collection.
Major Gen. F.H. Smith
Supt., Virginia Military Institute
Sir:
By Command of the Governor I have this day to perform the most painful duty of my official life in announcing to you and through you to the Faculty & Cadets of the Virginia Mil. Institute the death of the great and good--the heroic and illustrious Lieut. General T.J. Jackson at 15 minutes past 3 oclock yesterday afternoon.
This heavy bereavement over which every true heart within the bounds of the Confederacy mourns with inexpressible sorrow--must fall if possible with heavier force upon that Noble State Institution to which he came from the battle-fields of Mexico, and where he gave to his native state the first years service of his modest and unobtrusive but public spirited and useful life.
It would be a senseless waste of words to attempt a eulogy upon this great among the greatest of sons who have immortalized Virginia. To the Corps of Cadets of the Virginia Military Institute, what a legacy he has left you, what an example of all that is good and great and true in the character of a Christian Soldier.
The Governor directs that the highest funeral honors be paid to his memory, that the customary outward badges of mourning be worn by all the officers and cadets of the Institution.
By command, W.H. Richardson, A.G.
By Command of Major Genl. Smith. A.G. Hill, Actg. Adjt., V.M.I.
CD
God Bless the Confederacy!!
It is honestly questionable whether the man could make it in today's military heirarchy given this limitation, no joke, but then that may have been true of the antebellum U.S. as well - war tends to bring out the fighters as a peacetime military does not. You wouldn't want to invite Grant to a tea party either.
"...There, clearly in view, was Jackson's Mill! The West Fork River was still curling like a moat around the boundaries of the family home place. ...Look! He could see the little boy: tired, withdrawn, alone.
He knew where the lad was going. It was where he wanted to go. On the other side of the West Fork was the little grove of white poplars that was his solitude---and his refuge---from the cares of the world. The sanctuary beckoned to him now with an intensity he had never felt before.
"Let us cross over the river," he exclaimed, "and rest under the shade of the trees."
-Tom Jackson had come home. (Robertson, pg. 753)
Jackson, at Chanchellorsville before being shot.
I am sure that the quote can be found in Shaara's God's and Generals, the prequel to Killer Angels, from which "Gettysburg" was made, and is to be a theatric release in Feb. 2003.
Warner Bros. Gods and Generals site
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