50 Fun Facts About Stonewall Jackson

Which part of Stonewall Jackson, amputated in 1863, lies buried under its own granite marker?

His left arm was amputated after he was shot and buried by his chaplain at Ellwood Manor, far from his grave. A former staff officer put up the marker in 1903.

Until 2000, Virginia combined its Lee–Jackson Day holiday with a day honoring which civil rights leader?

Martin Luther King Jr. Day was fused with the Confederate holiday as Lee–Jackson–King Day until a governor split them in 2000. Virginia dropped Lee–Jackson Day altogether in 2020.

How was Stonewall Jackson mortally wounded as he rode back toward camp after dark in May 1863?

Shot by his own troops, Jackson was hit three times when North Carolina sentries mistook his party for Union horsemen. The bullet's caliber later confirmed it was Confederate.

Which fruit is Stonewall Jackson famously said to have sucked on during campaigns, supposedly to ease indigestion?

Lemons are the legend, spread by a fellow general's memoir, but his biographer found no such obsession. Jackson simply loved fruit, peaches above all.

Stonewall Jackson's dying words, about crossing a river to rest in the shade, gave which novelist a 1950 book title?

Ernest Hemingway borrowed them for Across the River and into the Trees, whose dying colonel recites Jackson's words to his driver.

Which World War II general, who as a boy prayed before portraits of Lee and Jackson, vowed to be Eisenhower's Jackson?

George Patton assumed the two portraits showed God and Jesus. Douglas MacArthur paid the same compliment, calling a favorite subordinate his Stonewall Jackson.

What was the name of the captured Union horse that Stonewall Jackson rode all through the Civil War?

Little Sorrel came off a Connecticut farm, outlived his rider and died at 36. His mounted hide is displayed at the VMI Museum.

At which July 1861 battle did Thomas Jackson's Virginia brigade hold firm and earn him the nickname Stonewall?

First Bull Run, known in the South as First Manassas, was the war's first major battle. Jackson's brigade lost more men that day than any other Southern brigade.

Which relative of Stonewall Jackson was so staunch a Unionist as to reportedly prefer him dead to leading a rebel army?

His sister Laura, once his closest confidante, sided so firmly with the Union that it later estranged her from her own husband too.

Stonewall Jackson rides beside Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis in a giant carving on which Georgia landmark?

Stone Mountain carries the world's largest bas-relief, cut 42 feet deep into the rock face and showing all three men on horseback.

Clarksburg, where Stonewall Jackson was born in 1824, is in which present-day state?

West Virginia did not exist when Jackson was born. Clarksburg belonged to Virginia until its northwestern counties broke away in 1863, the year he died.

Which academy did Thomas Jackson enter in 1842 near the bottom of his class, graduating 17th of 59 four years later?

West Point classmates said that with one more year he would have finished top. He arrived with so little schooling that he struggled with the entrance exams.

In which conflict did the young Thomas Jackson make his name by defying an order to retreat at Chapultepec?

The Mexican War brought him two brevet promotions. At Chapultepec he judged that pulling back was deadlier than fighting on, and events proved him right.

In which Virginia town did Thomas Jackson teach at VMI for a decade, buy his only house and lie buried?

Lexington later drew Robert E. Lee too: as a college president he lived in the same residence Jackson had shared with his first wife's family.

In 1859, Major Thomas Jackson commanded VMI cadets' howitzers at the hanging of which militant abolitionist?

John Brown went to the gallows at Charles Town that December. Jackson's detail of 21 cadets and two howitzers added to the military guard around it.

Which general, mortally wounded moments later, is credited with coining Thomas Jackson's nickname Stonewall?

Barnard Bee was rallying his own shaken brigade when he pointed to Jackson's line. He died the next day, so nobody could ask whether he meant praise or a complaint.

Stonewall Jackson's 1862 campaign, in which his men marched 646 miles in 48 days, ran along which river's valley?

The Shenandoah was where Jackson's 17,000 men engaged three separate Union armies and kept them from reinforcing the drive on Richmond.

Which nickname did Stonewall Jackson's infantry earn in the 1862 Valley Campaign?

Foot cavalry was a deliberate oxymoron for infantry famed for their speed. Jackson won five significant victories that spring while heavily outnumbered.

Stonewall Jackson's bold 1862 attacks persuaded which leader to hold a whole corps back from the drive on Richmond?

Abraham Lincoln read Jackson's aggression as the sign of a far larger force and kept about 50,000 soldiers away from the assault on Richmond.

Stonewall Jackson's men bore the brunt of the opening attacks at which September 1862 battle near Sharpsburg, Maryland?

Antietam ended Lee's first invasion of the North. A division Jackson had left behind arrived at the last minute to stop a Union breakthrough.

At which May 1863 battle did Stonewall Jackson lead his last flank attack before being fatally wounded that night?

Chancellorsville has been called Lee's perfect battle: he split his army twice and sent Jackson's entire corps around the Union flank.

Which illness killed Stonewall Jackson eight days after he was wounded in May 1863?

Pneumonia set in while he recovered in a plantation's small office building, which he had chosen over the owner's offer of the main house.

Stonewall Jackson, so devout that he was said to prefer pious officers to able ones, was a deacon in which church?

Presbyterian faith ran through everything he did: theology was said to be the only subject he truly enjoyed discussing, and his dispatches credited Providence.

Besides drilling cadets on the guns, Major Thomas Jackson was VMI's professor of which science from 1851?

Physics went by the grander title of Natural and Experimental Philosophy, and Jackson taught it for ten years until the war began.

Which nickname did VMI cadets give their stiff professor, the future Stonewall Jackson, in the 1850s?

Tom Fool was their verdict on a teacher who memorized his lectures and, when asked for help, simply repeated the same words more slowly.

Which arsenal town was Colonel Thomas Jackson's first Civil War command in 1861, and his prize again in September 1862?

Harpers Ferry is where he drilled the future Stonewall Brigade in 1861. Retaking the town in 1862, his command also seized many people who had escaped slavery there.

Which disease killed both Stonewall Jackson's father and his six-year-old sibling while Thomas was still a toddler?

Typhoid fever left his mother alone at 28 with a newborn and her husband's gambling debts. She sold the family's possessions to pay them.

Stonewall Jackson's great-grandparents met aboard a ship carrying them from London to Maryland in 1749 as what?

Convicted thieves John Jackson and Elizabeth Cummins were each sentenced in London to transportation. They fell in love on the voyage and married in 1755.

Mary Anna Jackson, Stonewall's second wife, wrote two books about him and became widely known by which title?

Widow of the Confederacy was her title for some fifty years. She never remarried, lived until 1915 and often attended veterans' reunions.

In which June 1862 series of battles outside Richmond did an exhausted Stonewall Jackson repeatedly arrive late?

The Seven Days found him late at Mechanicsville and Savage's Station and stalled at White Oak Swamp, lapses often put down to a severe lack of sleep.

If Stonewall Jackson was the hammer of Robert E. Lee's army, which fellow corps commander has been called its anvil?

James Longstreet favored defense where Jackson favored attack, though in August 1862 the roles reversed: Jackson stood fast while his colleague struck with 25,000 men.

Which dashing cavalry commander gave the shabbily dressed Stonewall Jackson a fine new general's coat in late 1862?

J. E. B. Stuart ordered the coat from one of Richmond's best tailors. Jackson was so embarrassed when soldiers rushed to stare that he left it unworn for months.

At which December 1862 battle did Stonewall Jackson's corps hold the right of Lee's line against a strong Union assault?

Fredericksburg was a Confederate victory, and on its eve Jackson learned by letter that his daughter Julia had been born weeks earlier.

Which rank did Stonewall Jackson reach in October 1862, when his command became the Second Corps of Lee's army?

Lieutenant general put him just behind Lee and one other officer in the army's order of seniority, sixteen months after he was made a brigadier.

Stonewall Jackson's final attack, a surprise flank march in May 1863, routed part of which Union general's army?

Joseph Hooker had only just taken over the Army of the Potomac. His right flank was caught eating and playing games, unaware a whole corps was under a mile away.

Which Union general did Stonewall Jackson rout at Front Royal in May 1862 and chase out of the Valley?

Nathaniel Banks was ejected from the Valley, a humiliation that made beating Jackson an immediate priority in the Union capital.

In which Valley town did Stonewall Jackson set up his headquarters after taking command of the Valley District in 1861?

Winchester was where his wife joined him for the winter of 1861–62.

Which general inherited Stonewall Jackson's Second Corps in May 1863 and was later faulted for hesitating at Gettysburg?

Richard Ewell was told to take the heights at Gettysburg if practicable and chose not to try, which historians call the battle's greatest missed opportunity.

Which actor played Stonewall Jackson in the 2003 Civil War epic Gods and Generals, opposite Robert Duvall's Lee?

Stephen Lang got the part when Russell Crowe, the first choice, had scheduling conflicts. He had played George Pickett in the earlier film Gettysburg.

Which March 1862 battle, fought on faulty intelligence, was Stonewall Jackson's only defeat of his Valley Campaign?

Kernstown was a tactical loss that paid off: the attack looked so bold that Union leaders assumed a far larger army and held troops back.

Which surgeon performed Stonewall Jackson's amputation in 1863 and later wrote an account of his final hours?

Hunter McGuire went on to found medical schools in Richmond and to serve as president of the American Medical Association.

Which mapmaker on Stonewall Jackson's staff drew the detailed Valley maps credited with helping win the 1862 campaign?

Jedediah Hotchkiss was a New York-born schoolteacher who had taken up mapmaking as a hobby after moving to Virginia.

Which cavalry commander screened Stonewall Jackson's Valley army until he was killed near Harrisonburg in June 1862?

Turner Ashby was prized for his scouting, yet Jackson criticized the lax training and discipline of his troopers.

Which fellow general, Stonewall Jackson's brother-in-law, said his genius never shone under another's command?

Daniel Harvey Hill and Jackson each married a daughter of the Morrison family, whose father was the first president of Davidson College.

As a boy, Thomas Jackson gave one of his uncle's slaves secret reading lessons in exchange for a supply of what?

Pine knots burned brightly enough for him to read borrowed books at night. Teaching a slave to read was illegal, and the pupil later escaped to Canada.

The Virginia house Stonewall Jackson owned before the war, later restored as a museum, spent 1907 to 1954 as what?

A hospital named for Jackson filled the house for nearly half a century. The brick building was restored to its 1850s look in 1979.

Virginia's Lee–Jackson Day, which added Stonewall Jackson's name in 1904, was replaced in 2020 by which state holiday?

Election Day took its place on the state calendar when lawmakers voted to end an observance that had marked Jackson's January birthday.

USS Stonewall Jackson, launched in 1963 and in service until 1995, was which type of vessel?

A missile submarine built in California, she test-fired her first Polaris ballistic missile in December 1964.

Stained-glass windows honoring Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee were removed in 2017 from which US landmark?

National Cathedral glass showed Jackson reading the Bible in a Confederate camp, with the Confederate flag worked into the design.

Stonewall Jackson resigned in January 1862, then relented, after Richmond ordered his troops withdrawn from which town?

Romney had been taken in a brutal winter march. Jackson asked to go back to VMI instead, and withdrew the resignation only under pressure from the governor.