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A Day in the Life of the City: Stonewall Jackson’s Return to Lexington Through Lynchburg
If you have read James I. Robertson’s biography of Stonewall Jackson, you know what a daunting task it is. Seven hundred and sixty-two pages of small print that spares little in the life of this legendary Confederate general. It is fas- cinating, rich in detail, but I have to tell you the biography spent the better part of a year on or near my night table as I nibbled my way through it.
This article, however, is not on the
boat’s history and its importance to transportation for Lynchburg.
My principal source is Robertson’s biography of Jackson. I am also in- debted to former Lynch’s Ferry editor, Jim Elson, for pointing me in the right direction at several stages in gathering sources for this article and for providing information from his own history of the city, Lynchburg, Virginia: The First Two Hundred Years.
to prevent gangrene. The general was moved to a country home at Fairfield near Spotsylvania Courthouse where pneumonia set in and eventually cost him his life. He died on May 10, 1863, at the age of 39.
Robertson skillfully reconstructs the beloved leader’s final moments as scenes in reverse order of time flash through Jackson’s mind: “Antietam ... Second Manassas ... campaigns in the Valley
“Let us cross over the river and r
life of Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson. Rather it will focus on his death and on the day that his body trav- eled through Lynchburg on its way to his final resting place in Lexington. My intent is to give you a glimpse of what was going on in Lynchburg and the sur- rounding counties as Jackson’s casket passed through the city on May 13, 1863. Since his remains came here to be transferred to the packet boat Marshall for the final leg of his final journey, I will also delve into a bit of the packet
And what would history be without newspapers to provide the first draft of it at every important turn of events? The Daily Virginian, one of Lynchburg’s two daily newspapers at the time, offered a vital glimpse of life in the Hill City in those tumultuous times, but I was a bit disappointed that the editor, Charles W. Button, spent as much time pluck- ing stories from the Richmond Whig
and the Richmond Daily Dispatch as he did in gathering the news right in his own back yard. Lynchburg’s other daily newspaper at the time was The Republi- can edited by Robert H. Glass, father of Senator Carter Glass.
General Jackson, as most of you know, was wounded at Chancellorsville on May 2, 1863, by shots from mem- bers of the 18th North Carolina Regi- ment. He was struck by three bullets, the most damaging of which hit his left arm and another his left shoulder. He was moved by wagon to what passed for a field hospital at the edge of the Wil- derness near Fredericksburg. By early the next day, a Sunday, Dr. Hunter H. McGuire, a regimental surgeon who had been with Jackson since the Harpers Ferry campaign, amputated his left arm
BY ROBERT WIMER
... fame along Bull Run ... ten happy years at VMI ... friends in Lexington ... Anna ... and Ellie ... the excitement of war in Mexico ... the trying days at West Point ... the lonely years of youth. ... After the struggles of life came the peace of death.”
According to those in the room
when death came, writes Robertson, Jackson’s last words were these: “Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.” Those words would be remembered on the trip up the James River from Lynchburg to his final rest- ing place.
Robertson observes that Jackson’s death was a tragedy, noting that “the ef- fect on the civilian population could be called paralyzing.” His body was sent to Richmond by train.
The Richmond Daily Dispatch was so moved by his death that it proclaimed, “The affections of every household in the nation were twined about this great and unselfish warrior ... he has fallen and a nation weeps.” On the Union side, a Massachusetts private summed up the feelings best with a simple obser- vation: “We shall fear him no more.”
On the arrival of his remains in Rich-
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LYNCH’S FERRY
Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson
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