Early’s troops arrived and formed. The Federals were beaten into a tumultuous retreat that never slacked until Centerville was reached.
From that day the name “Stonewall” attached to Thomas Jonathan Jackson and was peculiarly appropriate as indicating the adamantine, unyielding character of the man.
The motto of his life was: “A man can do what he wills to do,” and in his resolves he depended for guidance upon Divine leading. He tried always to throw a religious atmosphere about his men; and out of respect to his feelings, if for no other reason, they often refrained from evil. His mount was a little sorrel horse, that the men affirmed was strikingly like him as it could not run except towards the enemy.
The ardent love of his troops for him made the tragedy of his death the more deplorable. Mistaking him for the enemy as he was returning from the front, in the gathering darkness at Chancellorsville, May, 1863, his own men shot him,—shot him down with victory in his grasp.
The whole country was horror-struck. Friend and foe alike paused in sympathy at such a situation.
To the Southern cause it was more than the taking off of a leader; it was an irreparable loss. By his death was left a gap in the Confederate ranks that no one else could fill.
Prior to the breaking out of the war Jackson had been unknown, but in the two years of his service he accomplished more than any other officer on his side. He saved Richmond from early fall by keeping the Union forces apart, until he was joined by Lee, when together they drove McClellan from within a few miles of the Confederate Capital and cleared the James River of gunboats.
In his report from Chancellorsville, General Robert E. Lee pays tribute to the illustrious officer thus:—
“The movement by which the enemy’s position was turned and the fortune of the day decided, was conducted by the lamented Lieutenant General Jackson, who, as has already been stated, was severely wounded near the close of the engagement Saturday evening. I do not propose here to speak of the character of this illustrious man, since removed from the scene of his eminent usefulness, by the hand of an inscrutable but all-wise Providence. I nevertheless desire to pay the tribute of my admiration to the matchless energy and skill that marked this last act of his life, forming as it did a worthy conclusion of that long series of splendid achievements which won for him the lasting love and gratitude of his country.
“R. E. Lee.