Jackson's Arm

 

   Many Civil War battles took place in Virginia, and so there are many road signs pointing out various monuments and battlefields, but the most unusual one has to be the sign painting out the Grave of Stonewall Jackson's Arm.

   Up in Pennsylvania on the Gettysburg Battlefield there's a monument known as the High Water Mark of the Rebellion. It marks the furthest advance against Union troops on the final day of the battle. I think the grave of Jackson's arm marks the spot where the tide of Confederate hopes for independence began to recede.

   Thomas Jackson was born on this day in 1824 in Clarksburg, Virginia (now in West Virginia). He had a rough childhood, went to West Point, distinguished himself in the Mexican War where he first met the older Robert E. Lee, and after the war became a teacher at the Virginia Military Institute. 

   We know Jackson almost invariably as "Stonewall," but his students at VMI called him "Tom Fool," because they disliked his teaching methods. Jackson was a believer in rote memorization and firm discipline. He received his better known nickname at the First Battle of Bull Run. There is a debate about the exact meaning of the name. During the battle another general asked Jackson for help. This other general then said to his troops, "There stands Jackson like a stone wall." But he may have been angry Jackson did not come to help him  more quickly: "Why does Jackson stand there like a stone wall?" It was impossible to ask which he meant because he was killed shortly after making his comment.

   The nickname stuck and once out of the classroom, Jackson proved to be no fool. He was famous for inspiring his troops to march long distances to show up exactly where Union forces did not expect him to be. The greatest example of his audacity occurred at the Battle of Chancellorsville along the Rappahanock River in Virginia in May of 1863. 

   Lee was facing a much larger army, but he had an uncanny ability to size up his opponent. With this knowledge, Lee decided to go against all military wisdom and divide his smaller army in the face of a numerically stronger enemy. Lee sent Jackson and his division along a narrow road through the woods to outflank the Union Army. 

   Union soldiers on the right flank sensed there was a large body of men passing through the woods reported up through the ranks. Headquarters pooh-poohed the information: "Only a madman would attempt such a move," was the response.

   As the soldiers on the right flank, mostly German immigrants, were settling down to supper, hundreds of rabbits and deer came out of the woods and ran directly through their camp. This strange sight was followed by the blood-curdling scream of the rebel yell as 30,000 of Jackson's troops erupted from the woods.

  It was a total rout and Jackson only called off the attack because of darkness. Into that darkness, Jackson and his staff rode out beyond their lines to reconnoiter. As they returned, some of their own men, thinking they were Yankee cavalry, fired on them. Jackson was hit twice in the left arm. He was moved to a nearby plantations where his arm was amputated. Eight days later he died of complications of pneumonia.

   Chancellorsville was a great victory for Lee and the South. The victory encouraged Lee to move north into Union territory. Lee met the Union Army at Gettysburg and a victory there might have led to Confederate independence. But as the historians say, "Jackson was not there."

Jackson with Lee, the night before his fatal wound.