Originally aired on September 06, 1996 - In part 106 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson discusses two myths surrounding the life of General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.
#106 – Myths and Stonewall Jackson
An enormous amount of myth not only permeates Civil War history but also stokes the fires that keep interest in that war burning heartily. Because Americans like history colorful, we are more disposed to inject myths into the company of fact. With the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln, no figure in the Civil War has suffered more from being mythologized than General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.
Myths are usually harmless. We manufacture them for those whom we admire or for those who have made some indelible impact on either our personal feelings or our national conscience. In addition, Americans like peculiarity in their heroes. Not only does it set a man above the norm, but it also provides fodder for the myth-makers.
“Stonewall” Jackson fits that pattern beautifully. Of the score or more legends and fabrications surrounding the famous Confederate general, two can be used to show how myths – like weeds in a yard – persist despite all efforts to eliminate them.
The first falsehood centers around Jackson’s supposed passion for lemons. That story emerged from the imagination of a wartime novelist and the memoirs of a fellow general who never let facts stand in the way of a good story. Within a decade after the Civil War, Jackson’s love of lemons was a staple of American folklore.
In truth, Jackson was fond of all fruit. He derived no special satisfaction from lemons. Surely the Shenandoah Valley where he lived has never been known for lemon production. To set the record straight, Jackson’s favorite fruit was probably peaches – followed by apples, figs, plums, oranges, persimmons, and any other such delicacies he could find. Neither Jackson nor any member of his family ever made mention of an over-fondness for lemons. Those who bedeck his grave today with lemons do a disservice to Jackson’s memory by perpetuating a perceived fact rather than the truth.
A second and more farfetched myth developed after Jackson’s death and concerns the battle of Gettysburg. It attributes to Jackson a miracle-making ability.
If at Chancellorsville Jackson had survived his battle wounds, the myth says, he and General Richard Ewell would have led the Second Corps of Lee’s army two months later at Gettysburg. Jackson, in the first day’s fighting, and in contrast to the confused and vacillating Ewell, would have sent his men storming Cemetery Hill while the Union army was off-balance. That, the myth continues, would have won the pivotal battle, which would have turned the whole Civil War completely around and brought ultimate victory to the Confederate cause.
All of this would have transpired if Jackson had been in Pennsylvania with Lee. Strategy, tactics, manpower, odds, the positions of the armies, the state of affairs in the West, the strangling Union blockade, the internal weaknesses of the Confederacy – none of this is germane. Everything boils down to: if only Jackson had been at Gettysburg.
Try if you will to think of any other individual whose death, if prevented, could be presumed by so many people in so many generations to have had the power to affect American history so climactically. You cannot. Everything about “Jackson at Gettysburg” is supposition and guesswork. The fact that untold numbers of Americans believe it gives the myth significance.
Seeking to cloak Jackson in a shroud of invincibility shuts out the beautiful and all-American story of a lonely orphan boy who, by determination and an abiding faith in God, became one of the most revered military commanders in warfare. Remember him for what he was. Such is the greatest honor we can pay him.
