Stonewall Welcome to the Stonewall Jackson Forum!

Lane had alerted all his regimental commanders that they were moving up to take the lead and therefore to be at the highest possible alert for anything and to prepare to make a night attack. There was a great deal of confusion during this time and it only got worse as the sun set. Every report I can recall reading says that Jackson met with Hill on the Plank Road and this meeting occurred AS Lane's Brigade was being put in place. I can see a scenario where there is a great deal of activity and once the meeting was over Jackson decides to go out front a little farther to find out what the Union forces were doing. According to this book he went out about 100 yards, just short of the NC 33 but he was close enough to hear the Union forces working on defensive positions. On returning gun fire erupts to his south so his party moves into the tree line on the north side of Plank Road for ?? what ?? protection, my guess. Why did he decide to turn into the woods near his own lines?? Perhaps the guide, Pvt Kyle recommended that turn?? Next someone in the NC 18 yelled "Yankee Cavalry" and firing erupted. From a simple soldiers point of view I am sure the soldiers of the NC 18th had no idea where they were or what direction they were facing. They had marched all day just keeping the back of the soldier in front of them in sight. What did Major Barry know? Did he know there were friendly pickets to his front???A confederate officer is quoted in Sears book as saying that the 'possibility of Union Cavalry attacking that night in the dense woods of the Wilderness was about as likely as a gunboat firing on them'. But the NC 18th did fire and the rest is history.

I doubt there is much more hard information out there for scholars to sift through, but there are some good stories for historic novelists to write. A truly fascinating time in American History.
 
I was given the honor of lecturing at Sailor's Creek battlefield in January for the annual celebration of Lee-Jackson day. My topic was Jackson's early years and its impact on his life. Fascinating stuff!
What sources do you recommend for learning about Jackson's early years?
 
I was given the honor of lecturing at Sailor's Creek battlefield in January for the annual celebration of Lee-Jackson day. My topic was Jackson's early years and its impact on his life. Fascinating stuff!
I find your spelling of "Sailor's Creek" interesting, because I have seen it spelled different ways.
 
It's interesting to see the brush of revisionism tag Stonewall Jackson, by which I mean scholars trying to assert he was a rather ordinary general. Has anyone read Peter Cozzens' Shenandoah 1862 ? As much as I liked his Middle Tennessee series, that book bent over backwards to make Jackson's handling of the Valley Campaign look terrible.
 
Gentlemen please you must remember when we the north got our buts kicked by Jackson we had to say it must be us how can some hillbilly be kicking our *** so it was our mistake not his genius and if we keep saying it it must be true
 
When I first saw that image, I immediately thought of Jackson at Second Manassas watching the Union troops passing by on the road, with his men behind him just waiting to spring the trap.

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Lord of the Valley by Dan Nance depicts a favorite subject, Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of Spring, 1862.

This is as of this writing a brand new forum here at CivilWarTalk, and though there are already two pages of posts they have been assembled from other already-existing threads. Of course 2013 marks the Sesquicentennial of Jackson's untimely death following the Battle of Chancellorsville, but I hope we will focus not only on that sad event but on his entire life and military career. I do not presume to put myself forward as any kind of ultimate authority on General Thomas Jonathan Jackson, but rather someone who has enjoyed studying and reading about his life and career now for the past half-century.

My first significant exposure to the subject was probably in the memorable summer of 1961, The Civil War Centennial, when my long-suffering but unbelievably supportive mother drove the two of us all the way to see my very first reenactment, that of First Bull Run, staged actually ON Henry House Hill! All the way there and back in the almost unbearable heat and humidity of late July, with NO car air conditioning ( ! ) and before completion of the then-new Interstate Highway System we traveled roads all the way from Texas to Gettysburg and back. That long ago it was positively "cool" to revel in our Confederate heritage, unlike our now more enlightened ( read "politically correct" ) times. I especially remember visiting all the Jackson-related sites in the Shennandoah Valley, from his grave and home in Lexington to his office in Winchester, and of course the major NPS Jackson-related sites like Antietam, Manassas, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville.

I hope that you will forgive me if in the past fifty-two years my memory of certain particulars has gotten a bit rusty; I look forward to the help of other members of the forum, and especially Donna, whose apparently encyclopedic knowledge of personal minutia regarding the general is truly impressive!
 
A Stonewall Jackson Then-and-Now

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I've already posted these in another thread devoted to then-and-now photographs, and added the first to the OP in this thread as well but thought they deserved addition here as a post. They show the same view of Jackson's Headquarters museum in Winchester fifty-four years apart - the above was taken by my mother on my very first visit there in July, 1961 while on our way to Gettysburg and then the reenactment of First Bull Run; the one below was taken this spring in May, 2015 by my friend Mike on a tour of Shenandoah Valley sites from here to Lexington.

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Hi All,
I was referred here by 7th Mississippi Infantry (Forum Host). I am interested to find out Thomas Jackson's day to day accounts in 1862. Is there a source out there on the web or maybe a book that can help me obtain this information?

Thanks in advance.

Robin
 
Hi All,
I was referred here by 7th Mississippi Infantry (Forum Host). I am interested to find out Thomas Jackson's day to day accounts in 1862. Is there a source out there on the web or maybe a book that can help me obtain this information?

Thanks in advance.

Robin
Dr. Robertson's encyclopedic biography, the Official Records, and the VMI library archives are where I would begin.
 
Dr. Robertson's encyclopedic biography, the Official Records, and the VMI library archives are where I would begin.

Thank you so much Nathan. I went to the VMI archives online and the timeline I was looking for was brief. Does anyone here know where he was on November 15th 1862?
 
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