Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War

To the mourning of a sore-stricken nation Stonewall Jackson was carried to his rest. As the hearse passed to the Capitol, and the guns which had so lately proclaimed the victory...

During the summer of 1862 the stirring events in the Western hemisphere attracted universal attention. All eyes were fixed on Richmond. The fierce fighting on the Chickahominy,...

1862, May That week in May when the Army of the Valley marched back to the Shenandoah was almost the darkest in the Confederate annals. The Northern armies, improving daily in d...

1862. Sept. 17 It is a curious coincidence that not only were the number, of the opposing armies at the battle of Sharpsburg almost identical with those of the French and German...

1862. October While the Army of Northern Virginia was resting in the Valley, McClellan was preparing for a winter campaign. He was unable, however, to keep pace with the impatie...

At a council of war held during the night at Chancellorville House, the Federal generals were by no means unanimous as to the operations of the morrow. Some of the generals advi...

1862. Feb. 27 By the end of February a pontoon bridge had been thrown across the Potomac at Harper’s Ferry, and Banks had crossed to the Virginia shore. An army of 38,000 men, i...

By the ignorant and the envious success in war is easily explained away. The dead military lion, and, for that matter, even the living, is a fair mark for the heels of a baser a...

While the Indian summer still held carnival in the forests of Virginia, Jackson found himself once more on the Shenandoah. Some regiments of militia, the greater part of which w...

In March, 1862, more than 200,000 Federals were prepared to invade Virginia. McClellan, before McDowell was withheld, reckoned on placing 150,000 men at West Point. Frémont, in...

“In war men are nothing; it is the man who is everything. The general is the head, the whole of an army. It was not the Roman army that conquered Gaul, but Cæsar; it was not the...

Sept. 1862 The Confederate operations in Virginia during the spring and summer of 1862 had been successful beyond expectation and almost beyond precedent. Within six months two...

1862 The region whither the interest now shifts is very different from the Valley. From the terraced banks of the Rappahannock, sixty miles north of Richmond, to the shining rea...

July 19 At the first streak of dawn, Jackson aroused his men and resumed the march. Before the column gained the plain, Stuart’s cavalry clattered past, leaving Patterson at Cha...

June 28, 1862 The battle of Gaines’ Mill, although the assailants suffered heavier losses than they inflicted, was a long step towards accomplishing the deliverance of Richmond....

The victories in the Valley, the retreat of Banks, Shields, and Frémont, followed by the victory of Gaines’ Mill, had raised the hopes of the South to the highest pitch.

During the night of August 30 the long line of camp-fires on the heights above Bull Run, and the frequent skirmishes along the picket line, told General Lee that his enemy had n...

1846 On June 30, 1846, Jackson received the brevet rank of second lieutenant of artillery. He was fortunate from the very outset of his military career. The officers of the Unit...

The stars were still shining when the Confederates began their retreat from Kernstown. With the exception of seventy, all the wounded had been brought in, and the army followed...

1861 Jackson spent ten years at Lexington, and he was just five-and-thirty when he left it. For ten years he had seen no more of military service than the drills of the cadet ba...

It has already been said that while the Army of Northern Virginia lay in winter quarters the omens did not point to decisive success in the forthcoming campaign. During the same...

1863 During the long interval which intervened between the battle of Fredericksburg and the next campaign, Jackson employed himself in preparing the reports of his battles, whic...

In the first quarter of the century, on the hills which stand above the Ohio River, but in different States of the Union, were born two children, destined, to all appearance, to...

1848 Of Jackson’s life at Fort Hamilton there is little to tell. His friend and mentor, Colonel Taylor, was in command. The chaplain, once an officer of dragoons, was a man of p...

1861 Immediately it became apparent that the North was bent upon re-conquest Jackson offered his sword to his native State. He was determined to take his share in defending her...

THE CITY OF MEXICO. THE UNITED STATES, 1861. SITUATION, NIGHT OF JULY 17, 1861. DISPOSITIONS, MORNING OF JULY 21, 1861. BULL RUN. SKETCH OF WEST VIRGINIA IN 1861. THE VALLEY. SI...

Harrisonburg, and within sight of the enemy’s patrols, it would seem that there was considerable risk. Had Banks attacked the bridge whilst the Confederate artillery was draggin...

[4] In one sense McClellan was not far wrong in his estimate of the Confederate numbers. In assuming control of the Union armies Lincoln and Stanton made their enemies a present...

[32] The Army of the Potomac numbered 105,000 men, and 25,000 animals. 600 tons of ammunition, food, forage, medical and other supplies had to be forwarded each day from White H...

service, which speaks of a column passing through Thoroughfare Gap; but, although the compilers of the Records have placed it under the date August 26, it seems evident, as this...

[26] Some of Banks’ officers shared his opinion. The captain of the Zouaves d’Afrique, the general’s body-guard, who had been cut off at Strasburg, but rejoined on the Potomac,...

[3] On January 19, 1,200 pairs of shoes and 400 or 500 pairs of blankets were forwarded for issue to men without either in D. H. Hill’s division, O.R., vol. xxi, p. 1097. In the...