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.
Commission Earned
Added to my (long) list.
ReplyDeleteis he the one that got the leg or arm blowed off?
ReplyDeleteGhost, that was General Dan Sickles. He used to go and visit his leg in a museum regularly. Steve_in_Ottawa
DeleteThanks Steve.
DeleteThere's a book on my shelf about Sickles - "American Scoundrel" written by the same author that wrote Schindler's List (Thomas Keneally). Sickles was a member of Congress, a politically appointed general, had an affair with the deposed Queen of Spain, killed the son of Francis Scott Key and more.
DeleteHe had an arm amputated right before he died from friendly fire.
DeleteSickles at Gettysburg is another good read on him. They take the alternate view that he really was the hero of that battle, blunting the Confederate attempt to cut the union line and thus surround the entire army on the hilltop.
Delete