|
 Dr.
Robertson came to the Smithsonian Institution in November to
discuss his book, Stonewall Jackson, The Man, The Soldier,
The Legend. He said that no previous book had enough original
information to discuss the man's life fully, so that we are
left with only a caricature. Using previously unknown original
source material, Robertson hoped to clearly define the individual
and separate him from the myth that has grown around him.
Robertson pulled us into this eccentric man's life, and excused
his strangeness by emphasizing Jackson's lonely childhood,
his religious fanaticism, and the early deaths of his family
members (except for his sister Laura, who became a Union supporter
and even gave aid to Federal soldiers). As a result, Jackson
grows up to be hypochondriacal, shy, reticent, distrustful,
as well as ambitious. He struggled to fit into normal society.
And, he liked all fruit, not just lemons.
Jackson's desire to escape the family farm and his ambition
to succeed at West Point compelled him to graduate seventeenth
in the 1846 class of 59 graduates. In spite of his conspicuous
bravery and three brevet promotions in the Mexican War, petty
disputes with military command forced him to leave the army
and take a teaching position at the Virginia Military Institute.
Just as he was blind to his own pettiness, he was blind to
the fact that he was a mediocre teacher at VMI. But in Lexington,
Virginia, he found religion, love, and happiness until the
Civil War broke out.
 Jackson
was soon defending the Shenandoah Valley. He had the ability
to turn Robert E. Lee's wishes into well executed attacks against
the enemy. His brilliant leadership and unrelenting will made
Union generals shudder and Confederates feel that they had
a chance to win the war. Of course, all of that ended May 10,
1863, when “Stonewall” Jackson was killed at Chancellorsville,
shot by his own men. But it didn't have to be that way, the
way that Robertson told it and the way that Jackson lived it.
The problem is with Robertson’s premise that Jackson’s
sad childhood formed him. Even though Jackson was orphaned,
he was raised by relatives on a large family estate. Was this
any worse than the lives of scores of nineteenth- century children?
Just read Dickens. Or, compare this story to Abraham Lincoln's
upbringing. Lincoln had no prominent family on whom to depend;
he had no education provided to him at the government's expense;
all those closest to him died at early ages; and, he was raised
in the primitive western frontier. Lincoln’s raw upbringing
made him a broad-minded and compassionate visionary, unlike
Jackson’s more privileged childhood, which made him an
uncommunicative religious fanatic who had no capacity for introspection.
In this light, Robertson’s theory that Jackson’s
lonely childhood explains the behavior of an eccentric man
is too simplistic and unconvincing.
Nor does his theory excuse the fact that while Jackson was
morally indebted to the federal government for his education,
he arbitrarily renounced his oath to his government to fight
for Virginia. Arbitrary, because he said he would fight on
whichever side Virginia chose. So he fought for the South,
because certain individuals in Richmond chose that side. Jackson
must have had a sense of the true issues that caused the Civil
War, but his lack of introspection made him blindly obedient
to authority.
Many men have had sadder childhoods and worse upbringings,
but did not renounce their country, nor assume that God was
always on their side. With some personal insight, Thomas Jackson
would not have fought for the South and would not have rejected
the government that educated and employed him for most of his
adult life. His personal ambition made him reckless, so it
is likely that he would have died early in the war, regardless
on which side he chose to fight. But if he had fought for the
North, he would have been true to himself, to his Christian
religion, and to his country.
Dr. Robertson’s research is exhaustive, and he is an
excellent speaker and an even better writer. In both the seminar
and the lecture, he made the ordinary events in Jackson’s
life fascinating and absorbing. If you are a Jackson fan, you
will be more so. However, you also will see that while the
sad facts of Jackson’s life may have created a brilliant
general, they do not excuse Jackson’s flaws as a man who
had neither compassion nor circumspection at a time in our
history when both were sorely needed.
Dr. Robertson's many years of original research
have produced varied and unparalleled studies of Civil War subjects.
His other books include:
Soldiers Blue and Gray
Civil War! America Becomes One Nation
Civil War Virginia: Battlefield for a Nation |
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