Stonewall Jackson

:For the 1960s country music artist, see Stonewall Jackson (musician); for the submarine, see USS Stonewall Jackson (SSBN-634).

Childhood

Thomas Jonathan Jackson was the third child of Julia Beckwith (née Neale) Jackson (1789–1831) and Jonathan Jackson (1790–1826), an attorney. Both of Jackson's parents were natives of Virginia. The family already had two young children and were living in Clarksburg, in what is now West Virginia, when Thomas, their third son, was born.

Related Topics:
Julia Beckwith (née Neale) Jackson - 1789 - 1831 - 1790 - 1826 - Attorney - Virginia - Clarksburg - West Virginia

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Two years later, tragedy struck the family when Jackson's father and sister Elizabeth (age six) died of typhoid fever. Jackson's mother gave birth to Thomas's sister Laura Ann the next day. Julia Jackson was widowed at 28 and was left with much debt, selling all the family's possessions to pay them. She declined family charity and moved into a small one-room house. Julia took in sewing and taught school to support herself and her three young children for about four years. In 1830, she remarried, but her new husband, also an attorney, did not like his stepchildren, and there were continuing financial problems. Then, after giving birth to Thomas's half-brother, she died of complications, leaving her three children orphaned. Julia was buried in an unmarked grave in a homemade coffin in Ansted, West Virginia.

Related Topics:
Typhoid fever - 1830 - Ansted, West Virginia

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Jackson was seven when his mother died, and he and his sister Laura Ann were sent to live with their paternal uncle, Cummins Jackson, who owned a grist mill in Jackson's Mill (near present-day Weston near Pittsburgh). Cummins Jackson was strict to Thomas Jackson, often giving his own views on things. Thomas Jackson looked up to Cummins as a schoolteacher. Their older brother, Warren, went to live with other relatives on his mother's side of the family, but he died of tuberculosis in 1841 at the age of 20.

Related Topics:
Cummins Jackson - Jackson's Mill - Weston - Pittsburgh - Tuberculosis - 1841

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Jackson helped around his uncle's farm, tending sheep with the assistance of a sheepdog, driving teams of oxen and helping harvest the fields of wheat and corn. Formal education was not easily obtained, but he attended school when and where he could. Much of Jackson's education was self-taught. He would often sit up at night reading by the flickering light of burning pine knots. The story is told that Thomas once made a deal with one of his uncle's slaves to provide him with pine knots in exchange for reading lessons. This was in violation of a law in Virginia at that time that forbade teaching a slave to read or write, but nevertheless, Jackson taught the man as promised. In his later years at Jackson's Mill, Thomas was a schoolteacher.

Related Topics:
Sheepdog - Oxen - Slave - Schoolteacher

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In 1842, Jackson was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. Because of his inadequate schooling, he had difficulty with the entrance examinations. As a student, he had to work several times harder than most cadets to absorb lessons. However, displaying a dogged determination that was to characterize his life, he became one of the hardest working cadets in the academy. Thomas Jackson graduated 17th out of 59 students in the Class of 1846.

Related Topics:
1842 - United States Military Academy - West Point - New York - 1846

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