IN THE GREAT CONSTELLATION OF CONFEDERATE HEROES, NO STAR shone brighter than General Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, the subject of G. F. R. Henderson's epic biography Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War. For the South, Jackson was the greatest military icon of the early Civil War years and, along with men like Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, a larger-than-life legend after the war to generations of former Confederates and their progeny. Jackson's tenure as a Confederate soldier lasted only two years, but his command record coupled with his untimely demise created an image that many Southerners embraced as an ideal. From 1861 to 1863, Jackson, in his determination and daring, seemed to personify the cause for which Southerners believed they were fighting, just as his death seemed to foreshadow the war's ultimate outcome. Because he did not live to see the war's end, white Southerners never saw Jackson humiliated by defeat, or struggle to regain his dignity and get back on his feet in civilian life. In Confederate memory the general was first and foremost a victor and as such the ultimate example of what might have been.

ISBN: 9780760779545