As the procession moved on, band after band of Confederates were seen—battle-scarred veterans in the old Confederate grey, military companies in bright uniforms, famous generals with bronzed faces and grizzled hair, the chaplains of the Confederacy, and visiting camps of veterans from other States.
Following these came the officers of the Virginia Military Institute and Washington and Lee University. Finally came a large concourse of citizens and carriages. Among those in the carriages were General Jubal A. Early, the orator of the day, and his host, General Custis Lee; the sculptor of the statue, Edward V. Valentine; Mrs. General T. J. Jackson and her son-in-law, Mr. Christian, and his children, Julia and Thomas Jackson Christian.
At last, the grand-stand in the University grounds was reached. After prayer and the reading of three Confederate war poems, “Stonewall Jackson’s Way,” “Slain in Battle,” and “Over the River,” General Early, clad in Confederate grey, made the address, which gave a simple account of the great battles fought by Jackson. He was greeted with hearty cheers, and tears rolled down the checks of many veterans as they again in memory fought and marched with the immortal Jackson.
At the end of the speech the procession again formed and marched to the cemetery where stood the monument.
At the given signal, Mrs. Jackson and her two grandchildren, Julia Jackson Christian, aged five years, and Thomas Jackson Christian, aged three years, mounted the steps of the platform. A single gun sounded, and the two children with united hands pulled the cord and let the veil fall, revealing to admiring thousands the face and form of Jackson.
Cheers and shouts rent the air, while the Rockbridge Artillery fired a salute of fifteen guns from the cannon which they had used at Manassas.
The statue, clad in the uniform of a major-general, stands with the left hand grasping a sheathed sword, upon which the weight of the body seems to rest. The right hand rests upon the thigh and holds a pair of field glasses, which it would seem that the General has just been using.
The figure is eight feet high and stands upon a granite pedestal ten feet tall. Upon the stone are carved only the words, “Jackson, 1824-1863,” and “Stonewall.”
Under the monument, in a vault, rest the remains of the dead soldier and his daughters, Mrs. Christian, and Mary Graham who died in infancy.
