Stonewall Jackson

Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson was a Confederate officer during the first half of the Civil War. Jackson was born the youngest of three children in Virginia in 1824. In 1826, Thomas's father and sister died of a disease which was followed by his mother giving birth to a fourth child. Widowed with a lot of debt and three small children, Thomas's mother was forced to sell many of the family's possessions and move them to a much smaller house in a a poorer part of the state of Virginia. Julia, Thomas's mother, remarried in 1830 but died giving birth to another child. This orphaned the three children who then moved in to live with their uncle, Cummins Jackson. He was very strict on his nephew forcing him to do lots of farm work and become educated in his free time. At one point he taught one of the family slaves to become literate which later helped him escape to Canada via thr Underground Railroad. In 1842, Jackson was accepted into the United States military academy at West Point, New York. Since he was not properly educated, he had trouble with the early entrance exams and ended up having to work harder than most of the rest to absorb the lessons. He graduated 17th out of 59 students when he graduated in 1846. During the Mexican American war, Jackson became a second lieutenant and got himself promoted throughout the war. Jackson accepted a teaching position after the war at the Virginia Military Institute in early 1851. Although he worked very hard, he was not a great teacher because he simply recited memorized lectures and would repeat them if students came in for help. Going into the Civil War, Jackson became a drill sergeant for the new recruits in the Confederate army. His efforts at Harper's Ferry where his squad held off Union soldiers gave him the nickname "Stonewall." He was eventually promoted to brigadier on June 17 of 1861. In 1863, Jackson was shot by his own men during the battle. He survived the shooting but died Less than two weeks later due to complications from pneumonia and the failed arm amputation operation. His legacy is deep in the operations of military training with very similar methods being used nowadays that he had initiated back in the mid 19th century. Some of his other unknow and peculiar legacies include the though that he always had one arm longer than the other. Secondly, he was very well known for how easy of a sleeper he was, even falling asleep with food in his mouth at times.