Showing results for "Death of Stonewall jackson"
Telling History vs. Making Art: Gods & Jacksons
Part four in a series. One of my favorite places to work at FSNMP is the Stonewall Jackson Shrine, the small plantation office building where the Confederate general died. It’s a story I love so much that I wrote a book about it, The Last Days of Stonewall Jackson. But no book gives the story […]
Read more...The Fourth of July and the Death of Independence
Just before the Fourth of July last year, I happened to work at the Jackson Shrine. Here’s a piece I wrote in response to that experience, originally published last year at another blog I write for, Scholars & Rogues. The clock on the fireplace mantel along the far wall still ticks away the seconds. On […]
Read more...Jackson’s Arm and the Occupy Movement
A mythos is a set of beliefs or assumptions about something, and every hero needs to be surrounded by one. Confederate General Thomas Jackson has probably one of the best mythos anywhere, from eating lemons to last words. Did he really hold his hand in the air to balance his legs? What was all that […]
Read more...Statues of Stonewall: A Parting Shot
Final in a series To wrap up our series on Stonewall Jackson statues, let’s finish where we began, and I’ll offer you a few thoughts about this:
Read more...Statues of Stonewall: Virginia State Capitol Grounds, Richmond
Fourth in a series When Stonewall Jackson, seventeen feet high and cast in bronze, arrived on the Virginia capitol grounds, he was ahead of his time. The date: October 26, 1875.
Read more...“If Jackson hadn’t gotten shot”: Why There’s No Point in Refighting Gettysburg
“That old house witnessed the downfall of the Southern Confederacy,” said former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George after visiting the Stonewall Jackson Shrine in 1923. “No doubt the history of America would have to be rewritten has ‘Stonewall’ Jackson lived.” The most common assumption, of course, is that if Stonewall Jackson hadn’t gotten shot […]
Read more...The Sound of History at the Stonewall Jackson Shrine
“What do you like best about working here at the Shrine?” a colleague asks. I’m gazing through wavy panes of imperfect glass out toward the parking lot, looking for signs of visitors on this Saturday morning. It’s nearly eleven, and so far only five people have stopped to visit the Stonewall Jackson Shrine. It’ll pick […]
Read more...1863: “Even the birds are seldom heard with their cheerful voices”: A Confederate Reflects Post-Chancellorsville
Though sometimes referred to as Robert E. Lee’s greatest victory, the battle of Chancellorsville resulted in nearly 13,000 Confederate casualties– almost 20% of the Army of Northern Virginia’s strength. As the Confederacy mourned its losses, perhaps mostly famously the death of Stonewall Jackson, Sergeant Lafayette Cooper, of the Georgian Troup Artillery, sat down to write […]
Read more...Amiel Whipple’s Armor of Dirt
We have written about the death of Brig. Gen. Amiel Whipple exactly once on this blog in ten and a half years, and that wasn’t until August of 2021 in a guest post by T. J. Bradley, writing about sharpshooters. Whipple was mortally wounded by a sharpshooter on May 4, 1863, at the battle of […]
Read more...