You are now standing in the trace of the Old Mountain Road, the road on which Jackson was riding when he was injured. Accompanied by aides and couriers, Jackson scouted in front of his main line, hoping to determine the new Union position.

 

Private David Kyle served as Jackson's guide through the tangled woods. He described the path taken by their party:

"We went down that old Mountain road some four hundred yards when we came in hearing of the Federals....We stayed there I should judge from two to four minutes when the Gen Jackson Turned his horse around and started back up the road we had come down....When we were about halfway back...he turned his horse head toward the south and facing the front of our own line of Battle he started to leave the old Mountain road and just as his horses front feet had cleared the edge of the road while his hind feet was still on the edge of the bank there was a single shot fired...in an instant it was taken up and...a volley as if from a regiment was fired."

 

Spurred by the belief that the returning Confederates were Union cavalrymen charging their line, Lane's men had fired into the darkness. One bullet lodged in Jackson's right palm and two struck his left arm. As a result of the wounds Jackson would lose his left arm. Jackson died one week later on May 10, 1863.

 

Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson died in an outbuilding on the Chandler plantation in the rural community of Guinea Station. Today, the Jackson Shrine is part of Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park.

(Left) Room where "Stonewall" spoke his last words.

Recommended Reading: Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend (Hardcover) (950 pages). Description: A distinguished Civil War historian unravels the complex character of the Confederacy's greatest general. Drawing on previously untapped manuscript sources, the author refutes such long-standing myths as Stonewall Jackson's obsessive eating of lemons and gives a three-dimensional account of the profound religious faith frequently caricatured as grim Calvinism. Though the author capably covers the battles that made Jackson a legend--Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, etc.--he emphasizes "the life story of an extraordinary man." The result is a biography that will fascinate even those allergic to military history. Continued below...

The New York Times Book Review, Stephen W. Sears . . . [T]wo dozen writers have attempted [Stonewall] biographies, and there are any number of special studies, monographs and essays. Now going straight to the head of the class of Jackson biographers, and likely to remain there, is James I. Robertson Jr. . . . Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend gives us far and away the sharpest picture we have ever had of this enigmatic figure.

Recommended Reading: The Gallant Dead: Union and Confederate Generals Killed in the Civil War (Hardcover). Description: More than 400 Confederate and 580 Union soldiers advanced to the rank of general during the course of the Civil War. (More than 1 in 10 would die.) A total of 124 generals died--78 for the South and 46 for the North. Continued below...

Weaving their stories into a seamless narrative of the entire conflict, Derek Smith paints a fascinating and often moving portrait of the final moments of some of the finest American warriors in history, including Stonewall Jackson, Albert Sidney Johnston, Jeb Stuart, James B. McPherson, John Reynolds, and numerous others.

 

Recommended Reading: Beloved Bride: The Letters of Stonewall Jackson to His Wife. Description: He called her "my beloved esposa" because Anna was his dearest love on this earth. The great military exploits of General Stonewall Jackson are studied in military schools around the globe, and his iron will and stern self-discipline have become legendary. However, little has been said about his remarkable marriage. The real Thomas J. Jackson was a humble Christian and loving husband and father. Continued below...

The tender and instructive letters he wrote to his wife Anna are a model of godly leadership and covenantal faithfulness. From their courtship to their final days together, trace the true story of this remarkable couple through the letters of General Jackson to his bride. Even in the midst of the most arduous military campaigns, Stonewall took the time to send home extensive letters of love and devotion. Through all of this, General Jackson proves himself to be a model example for Christian husbands of the twenty-first century -- especially through his dedication to living for God's glory and trusting in His providential care. This special edition book features a foreword by Stephen Lang, the actor who portrays "Stonewall" Jackson in the film, Gods and Generals.

 

Recommended Reading: Bleeding Blue and Gray: Civil War Surgery and the Evolution of American Medicine (Hardcover). Description: A landmark chronicle of Civil War medicine, Bleeding Blue and Gray is a major contribution to our understanding of America’s bloodiest conflict. Indeed, eminent surgeon and medical historian Ira M. Rutkow argues that it is impossible to grasp the harsh realities of the Civil War without an awareness of the state of American medicine at the time. At the outset of the war, the use of ether and chloroform remained crude, and they were often unavailable in the hellish conditions at the front lines. As a result, many surgical procedures were performed without anesthesia in the compromised setting of a battleground or a field hospital. This meant that “clinical concerns were often of less consequence,” writes Rutkow, “than the swiftness of the surgeon’s knife.” Continued below...

Also, in the 1860s, the existence of pathogenic microorganisms was still unknown–many still blamed “malodorous gasses” for deadly outbreaks of respiratory influenza. As the great Civil War surgeon William Williams Keen wrote, “we used undisinfected instruments from undisinfected plush-lined cases, and still worse, used marine sponges which had been used in prior pus cases and had been only washed in tap water.” Besides the substandard quality of wartime medical supplies and techniques, the combatants’ utter lack of preparation greatly impaired treatment. In 1861, the Union’s medical corps, mostly ill-qualified and poorly trained, even lacked an ambulance system. Fortunately, some of these difficulties were ameliorated by the work of numerous relief agencies, especially the United States Sanitary Commission, led by Frederick Law Olmsted, and tens of thousands of volunteers, among them Louisa May Alcott and Walt Whitman. From the soldiers who endured the ravages of combat to the government officials who directed the war machine, from the good Samaritans who organized aid commissions to the nurses who cared for the wounded, Bleeding Blue and Gray presents a story of suffering, politics, character, and, ultimately, healing.

 

Recommended Reading: Chancellorsville 1863: Jackson's Lightning Strike (Campaign). Description: Following the debacle of the battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862, Burnside was replaced as commander of the Army of the Potomac by General Joseph Hooker. Having reorganized the army and improved morale, he planned an attack that would take his army to Richmond and end the war. Although faced by an army twice his size, the Confederate commander Robert E. Lee split his forces: Jubal Early was left to hold off Sedgwick's Fredericksburg attack, and 'Stonewall' Jackson was sent with 26,000 men in a wide envelopment around Hooker's right flank. Continued below…

This title details how at dusk on May 2, Jackson's men crashed into the Federal right flank, and how stiffening Federal resistance slowed the Confederate advance the next day. From the Publisher: Highly visual guides to history's greatest conflicts, detailing the command strategies, tactics, and experiences of the opposing forces throughout each campaign, and concluding with a guide to the battlefields today.

 

Recommended Reading: Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville: The Dare Mark Campaign (Great Campaigns of the Civil War) (Hardcover). From Kirkus Reviews: A broadly researched, finely detailed, and well-written analysis of the connections linking two pivotal battles in the early part of the Civil War, by Sutherland (Seasons of War; 1995, etc.). The author pairs the battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, which took place on the southern side of the Rappahannock River in Virginia, and refers to them jointly as the ``Dare Mark'' campaign. (A Confederate soldier referred to the Rappahannock as the dare mark because Union armies dared not cross the river.) Sutherland combines minute strategic scrutiny with a deep knowledge of the personalities involved, notably, Lee and Jackson for the South, and Halleck, Burnside, and Hooker for the North. Continued below…

And he consults a broad range of sources, ranging from soldiers letters and contemporary newspaper accounts to postwar memoirs. Thus armed, Sutherland is able to place the battles in their broadest political and military contexts. Both battles led to Southern victories, and he examines their consequences, including the accidental death of Thomas ``Stonewall'' Jackson in his own troops crossfire, Lees inability to smash Hookers army, and Lees drive northward after his victory at Chancellorsville. Much attention is paid to the wars mismanagement by Congress and by various Northern officers and to fascinating partisan efforts to control the Union military. Sutherland, a professor of history at the University of Arkansas, is a deft writer. He identifies the facets of battle (and surrounding events) in a coherent fashion that will allow readers to peer over his shoulder at the larger picture. Though far too detailed in its dealings with military strategy and, this is nonetheless worthy of War-Between-the-States diehards. (7 illustrations, 7 photos, not seen). About the Author: Daniel E. Sutherland is a professor of history at the University of Arkansas. His books include The Confederate Carpetbaggers and the award-winning Seasons of War: The Ordeal of a Confederate Community, 1861–1865.