Stonewall Jackson Timeline

In 1842, Jackson was accepted to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, having received an appointment to the academy.

Image source: United States Military Academy

Jackson graduated 17th out of 59 students in the Class of 1846 from the United States Military Academy.

During the Battle of Chapultepec on September 13, 1847, Jackson refused what he felt was a 'bad order' to withdraw his troops during the Mexican-American War.

Image source: Battle of Chapultepec

In the spring of 1851, Jackson accepted a newly created teaching position at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington, where he taught until 1861.

Image source: Virginia Military Institute

In 1856, a group of VMI alumni attempted to have Jackson removed from his teaching position.

In November 1859, Major William Gilham led a contingent of the VMI Cadet Corps, including Jackson, to Charles Town to provide military presence at the hanging of abolitionist John Brown on December 2, following Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry on October 16.

Image source: John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry

When Virginia seceded from the United States in May 1861 after the Battle of Fort Sumter, Jackson joined the Confederate States Army. He was ordered to Richmond with the VMI cadet corps and appointed Colonel of Virginia Infantry.

Image source: Confederate States Army

On April 27, 1861, Virginia Governor John Letcher ordered Colonel Jackson to take command at Harpers Ferry, where he assembled the unit later known as the 'Stonewall Brigade', consisting of the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 27th, and 33rd Virginia Infantry regiments.

Following raids on the B&O Railroad on May 24, Jackson was promoted to brigadier general on June 17, 1861. He continued wearing a blue U.S. Army uniform until issued a gray Confederate uniform in 1862.

Jackson rose to prominence and earned his most famous nickname at the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas) on July 21, 1861, where his steadfast defense inspired the name 'Stonewall'.

Image source: First Battle of Bull Run

After the First Battle of Bull Run, Jackson was promoted to major general on October 7, 1861, and given command of the Valley District, with headquarters in Winchester.

In the spring of 1862, Union forces threatened the Shenandoah Valley. The campaign started with a tactical defeat at Kernstown on March 23, 1862, when faulty intelligence led Jackson to believe he was attacking a small detachment.

Image source: First Battle of Kernstown

In the Northern Virginia Campaign of August 1862, stereotypes about Jackson's cautiousness did not hold true, as he demonstrated aggressive maneuvering against Union forces.

Image source: Northern Virginia campaign

In the Maryland campaign of 1862, Jackson's command captured over 1200 people who had escaped slavery in Harpers Ferry, forcibly returning them to slaveowners or impressing them as laborers for the Army of Northern Virginia.

Image source: Maryland campaign

Jackson suffered a number of ailments and sought relief via hydrotherapy, popular in America at that time, visiting establishments at Oswego, New York (1850) and Round Hill, Massachusetts (1860), though with little evidence of success.

While an instructor at VMI in 1853, Thomas Jackson married Elinor 'Ellie' Junkin, whose father George Junkin was president of Washington College in Lexington.

Ellie gave birth to a stillborn son on October 22, 1854, experiencing a hemorrhage an hour later that proved fatal.

In 1855, Jackson organized Sunday School classes for blacks at the Presbyterian Church in Lexington, encouraging literacy among enslaved students despite it violating state law.

After a tour of Europe, Jackson married again in 1857, to Mary Anna Morrison. The couple likely sold two enslaved people that year to pay for a larger house after their wedding.

Image source: Mary Anna Jackson

Mary Anna had a daughter named Mary Graham on April 30, 1858, but the baby died less than a month later.

Built in 1801, the brick town house at 8 East Washington Street in Lexington was purchased by Jackson in 1859.

Another daughter was born to Jackson and Mary Anna in 1862, shortly before her father's death.

Jackson encouraged the Confederate States Army revival that occurred in 1863, although it was probably more of a grass-roots movement than a top-down revival.

On May 2, 1863, Jackson was accidentally shot by Confederate pickets at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Lee wrote to him: 'Could I have directed events, I would have chosen for the good of the country to be disabled in your stead.'

Jackson initially appeared to be healing, but he died from complications of pneumonia on May 10, 1863, eight days after he was shot. His last words were 'Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees.'

Beginning in 1904, the Commonwealth of Virginia celebrated Jackson's birthday as a state holiday. The observance was eliminated, with Election Day as a replacement holiday, effective July 2020.

A Stonewall Jackson Monument was unveiled on October 11, 1919, in Richmond, Virginia. It was removed on July 1, 2020, during the 2020–2021 United States racial unrest.

Image source: Stonewall Jackson Monument

In 1921, General Smedley Butler was told by a local farmer that Stonewall Jackson's arm was buried nearby under a granite marker. Butler dug up the spot and found the arm in a box under the marker.

Jackson is featured on the 1925 Stone Mountain Memorial half-dollar, commemorating the Confederate leaders carved into Stone Mountain.

Image source: Stone Mountain Memorial half dollar