General Stonewall Jackson is our next hero of integrity. He was born in 1824 and was one of the most famous Confederate generals in the Civil War. Both before and during the war, Stonewall Jackson worked to do his duty while striving also to do what was right no matter the circumstances. Exactly this trait later earned him the nickname “Stonewall.”

 

He was born in West Virginia as Thomas Jonathan Jackson. He did not have a happy childhood. His sister died of typhoid fever when he was two, and his father died shortly after. His mother was very sick and could not support Thomas or his siblings. As a result, she sent him to live and work with his uncle at a mill. He had to walk 18 miles through the wilderness to get there—and he was only ten years old!

 

Jackson’s uncle was strict but fair. Jackson had to work very hard around the farm. He tended sheep, drove teams of oxen, and helped harvest wheat and corn.

 

For most of the year, there was no time for Thomas Jackson to go to school, but he wanted to learn. He attended school whenever he could. Much of Jackson’s knowledge was self-taught. He had to work even harder to study as well as work.

 

So he could study at night in the days before electricity, Jackson once made a deal with one of his uncle's slaves to provide him with pine knots in exchange for reading lessons; Jackson would stay up late into the night reading borrowed books by the light of those burning pine knots. During spare moments in the day, he would teach the slave boy to read, as he had promised – even though it was against the law in Virginia at that time. He secretly taught the slave, and once he could read, the young slave was able to escape to his freedom in Canada.  

 

Jackson was determined and worked hard at his studies. He began to slowly change his life. When he was a teenager, Thomas became a schoolteacher.

 

Thomas Jackson then applied to the United States Military Academy at West Point. He struggled at first. But through his characteristic hard work, he went from the bottom of his class to the top third. One friend said, “If Jackson could have stayed another year, he would have been the top of his class.”

 

When the Civil War broke out between the North and South, Jackson found himself an officer in the Confederate Army. Although he let his slaves go at the beginning of the war, he thought it was his duty to fight for his state of Virginia.

 

In the first year of the Civil War, Jackson earned his famous nickname “Stonewall” at the First Battle of Bull Run. During the battle, the Confederate lines were crumbling as the Union soldiers charged with bayonets. Jackson's brigade of soldiers stood firmly on the hill. They showed the very discipline that Stonewall had instilled in them. The men were like their leader. As Confederate troops were retreating all around, the general rallied them saying, "Look! There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer. Rally behind Jackson’s brigade!”

 

Jackson’s brigade stopped the Union charge. It didn’t move an inch even though it suffered more casualties than any other Southern brigade that day. Jackson has since then been generally known as Stonewall Jackson.

 

Stonewall Jackson died two years later in 1863. After a battle, he was riding at night with some of his officers. Some Confederate guards thought he was an enemy soldier and fired in the dark. He died ten days later.

 

Stonewall Jackson’s friends and even his enemies all thought he was a man of integrity. He stood strong in battle and on his principles.