JOHN LOUIS SHEEHAN, LL. D.,
Of Boston, Mass.
Author of paper on Thomas Jonathan (Stonewall) Jackson.
Member of the Society.
THOMAS JONATHAN (STONEWALL) JACKSON.
A Paper Read at the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the American-Irish Historical Society, January 8, 1910, at Hotel Plaza in New York, by John Louis Sheehan, LL. D. of Boston University School of Law.
In scanning the pages of American history, one pauses at the name of Stonewall Jackson. In imagination the reader goes back more than half a century, to fields of fierce conflict where a nation was drenched in human blood. He hears the cry of the torn and mangled, the roar and shriek of the bursting shell, and when for a moment the flash of cannon clears away the smoke of battle, there is seen the form of one admired by all, the ingenious, the courageous, the redoubtable Jackson.
Nerve and a spirit of independence appears in his great grandmother, Elizabeth Cummins, a woman over six feet tall, who quarreled with her father and left for America, after throwing a silver tankard at his head, while he was keeper of “The Bold Dragoon” in London. On her arrival she married John Jackson, a man of Irish birth. Later on, when young Jackson compared notes, he found that his ancestors came from the same parish in Londonderry as those of President Andrew Jackson. The married couple settled on a farm in northwestern Virginia. It was out of this stock that our hero was born about January 21, 1824.
Jonathan Jackson, the father of Thomas Jonathan, retained little of the mettle of the early pioneers. His health, credit, and fortune were gambled away, and he died leaving his widow and four children to the care of his relatives. Stonewall was three years old at this time. Four years later, called to the bedside of his mother, he witnessed all that was mortal of her pass out of this life.
The orphan went to live with his uncle, Cummins Jackson, who gave him complete freedom in the open air. The boy became a good rider and grew fond of all out door sports. These days spent among remote kin were looked upon by him as the saddest of his life; he never cared to talk about them for this reason. Yet his temper as a boy was cheerful and generous. He had a high regard for truth, and his sense of justice was very strong. He was quick to resent an insult, would never yield to defeat, but when fairly treated was always gentle and kind.
He was eighteen years old when he became a constable of Lewis County. This office he held for a time, though the age required by law was twenty-one. “But since a desire for knowledge had been the passion of his youth,” it is needless to say that he was glad to resign on receiving an appointment to the military academy at West Point. On his arrival at Washington, the congressman from his district, introduced him to the secretary of war, as a young man with a limited education, with “an honorable desire for improvement.” His conversation must have pleased the secretary, for he said: “Go to West Point; and the first man who insults you, knock him down, and have it charged to my account.” The term at the academy having already began, the youth had to hasten to West Point. Before leaving he climbed the roof of the Capitol, and looked out over Washington. Nobody noticed him there, nobody looked for him in that great city; but there came a time when folks did look for him, and when the inhabitants shook at the mere mention of his name; yes, when the mere threat of an attack caused the greatest fear at Washington, and disturbed the whole United States.
It is said that he was a “gawky” youth, with an ill-looking jaw, wearing homespun clothes, when he presented himself to the officers at West Point. His appearance led the cadets to attempt fun at his expense. In a measure they were disappointed. After many trials they decided that the young fellow had come to stay. But Jackson did not make great progress in his studies. He could do the necessary riding and running, but he was slow in his book learning, and always two or three lessons behind his class. He barely got through his mid-year examinations, yet this pass gave him courage, and he studied even after the taps “for lights out.” The end of the first year, however, found him on safer ground.
When his class was graduated at the end of four years, Jackson stood seventeenth among the seventy. The world was to hear of that class later, for in it were many destined for distinguished honors; among them were Generals A. P. Hill, Pickett, Maury, D. R. Jones, W. D. Smith, and Wilcox of the Confederate Army, and Generals McClellan, Foster, Reno, Stoneman, Couch, and Gibbon of the Federal Army. Jackson himself was no longer an awkward boy, for the training and system at West Point had wrought a change which clung to him through life. He was kind and courteous, but not altogether sociable and had only a few good friends.