Stonewall Jackson

Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson was of Scots-Irish descent, and the great-grandson of John Jackson and Elizabeth Cummins.

John was born in Coleraine, County Londonderry, in Northern Ireland. He emigrated to the Province of Maryland in 1748 and moved to the Colony and Dominion of Virginia in 1758. He participated in the American Revolutionary War, fighting in the Battle of Kings Mountain on October 7, 1780. He was a lieutenant of the Virginia Militia after 1787. Elizabeth was born in London and raised by an unwed aunt. She was her aunt's only heir, inheriting one thousand pounds sterling. She used this sum to emigrate to Maryland and buy 3,000 acres (12 km²) of land. She is said to have successfully defended her land from attacks by Indians.

They had four children. Their second son Edward Jackson (March 1, 1759 – December 25, 1828) was married twice. He and his first wife, Mary Haddan, had six children. His second wife, Elizabeth Weatherholt Brake, presented him with an additional nine children. Jonathan Jackson was his third son by his first marriage.


Early childhood
Stonewall Jackson was the third child of Julia Beckwith (née Neale) Jackson (1798 – 1831) and Jonathan Jackson (1790 – 1826), an attorney. Both of Jackson's parents were natives of Virginia. The family already had two young children and were living in Clarksburg, in what is now West Virginia. This is where their third child, Thomas, was born. He was named for his maternal grandfather.

Two years later, Jackson's father and sister Elizabeth (age six) died of typhoid fever. Jackson's mother gave birth to Thomas's sister Laura Ann the next day. Julia Jackson thus was widowed at 28 and was left with much debt and three young children (including the newborn). She sold the family's possessions to pay the debts. She declined family charity and moved into a small rented one-room house. Julia took in sewing and taught school to support herself and her three young children for about four years.

In 1830, Julia Neale Jackson remarried. Her new husband, Blake Woodson[2], an attorney, did not like his stepchildren. There were continuing financial problems. The following year, after giving birth to Thomas's half-brother, she died of complications, leaving her three older children orphaned. Julia was buried in an unmarked grave in a homemade coffin in Westlake Cemetery along the James River and Kanawha Turnpike in Fayette County within the corporate limits of present-day Ansted, West Virginia.


Jackson's Mill, owned by Cummins Jackson.[edit]
Working and teaching at Jackson's Mill
Jackson was seven years old when his mother died. He and his sister Laura Ann were sent to live with their paternal uncle, Cummins Jackson, who owned a grist mill in Jackson's Mill (near present-day Weston in Lewis County in central West Virginia). Cummins Jackson was strict with Thomas, who looked up to Cummins as a schoolteacher. His older brother, Warren, went to live with other relatives on his mother's side of the family, but he later died of tuberculosis in 1841 at the age of 20.

Jackson helped around his uncle's farm, tending sheep with the assistance of a sheepdog, driving teams of oxen and helping harvest the fields of wheat and corn. Formal education was not easily obtained, but he attended school when and where he could. Much of Jackson's education was self-taught. He would often sit up at night reading by the flickering light of burning pine knots. The story is told that Thomas once made a deal with one of his uncle's slaves to provide him with pine knots in exchange for reading lessons. This was in violation of a law in Virginia that forbade teaching a slave to read or write which had been enacted following the infamous and bloody Nat Turner incident in Southampton County. Nevertheless, Jackson secretly taught the slave to read, as he had promised. In his later years at Jackson's Mill, Thomas was a schoolteacher.


West Point
In 1842, Jackson was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. Because of his inadequate schooling, he had difficulty with the entrance examinations and began his studies at the bottom of his class. As a student, he had to work harder than most cadets to absorb lessons. However, displaying a dogged determination that was to characterize his life, he became one of the hardest working cadets in the academy. Thomas Jackson graduated 17th out of 59 students in the Class of 1846. It was said by his peers that if they had stayed there another year, he would have graduated first.


U.S. Army, the Mexican War
Jackson began his U.S. Army career as a brevet second lieutenant in the 1st U.S. Artillery Regiment and was sent to fight in the Mexican-American War from 1846 to 1848. Again, his unusual strength of character emerged. During the assault on Chapultepec Castle, he refused what he felt was a "bad order" to withdraw his troops. Confronted by his superior, he explained his rationale, claiming withdrawal was more hazardous than continuing his overmatched artillery duel. His judgment proved correct, and a relieving brigade was able to exploit the advantage Jackson had broached. In contrast, he obeyed what he also felt was a "bad order" when he raked a civilian throng with artillery fire after the Mexican authorities failed to surrender Mexico City at the hour demanded by the U.S. forces.[3] The former episode, and later aggressive action against the retreating Mexican army, earned him field promotion to the brevet rank of major.

He served at the Siege of Veracruz and the battles of Contreras, Chapultepec, and Mexico City, eventually earning two brevet promotions. It was in Mexico that Jackson first met Robert E. Lee.


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