The Cult of Jackson

One of my former professors at GSU, Clifford Kuhn, brilliantly administered my undergraduate capstone course this past spring.  Our topic of study, commemoration, is one that I initially dove into without fully grasping the depth of the theme.  I since have learned that one of the most, if not the most, important facet found within the study of the field  is the change that the progress of time exerts on a particular commemoration.  As historians we study not only a person, place, or thing that is commemorated, but also the temporal and spatial (and, as we will see, personal) context that said commemoration takes place within.

Which leads me to today's post, a brief review of Wallace Hettle's just-released Inventing Stonewall Jackson: A Civil War Hero in History and Memory.  I first heard about this book over on Rea Andrew Redd 's fantastic blog and, as a fan of Jackson's, decided to immediately order a copy from Barnes & Noble.  It's a quick read, only 148 pages (plus endnotes), and goes to great lengths to explain how today's legend of Stonewall Jackson exists due to the influence of his early biographers.  Written as a series of somewhat (though by no means distractingly) unconnected essays, Hettle uses a thorough grasp of the literature to illustrate how the ideals held by both the biographer in question and the public at the time of publication shaped the story that became the Jackson legend.  For example, John Esten Cooke, a novelist taken with the "great man" theory of history and a firm believer in the romantic ideals that were popular at the time, wrote his Jackson narrative in a way that would serve those ends; because of this, the now incredibly-popular myths of Jackson's eccentricities in the field have become fodder for Civil War Roundtables across the globe.  Not to discount the stories of Jackson's odd habits as untrue, but rather Hettle makes a solid case that the emphasis placed on such oddities is more reflective of the time of publication rather than any historical fact.

Inventing Stonewall Jackson also describes in detail (though not of the overwhelming variety) the basis behind Robert Dabney's focus on Jackson's religiosity, Anna Jackson's defense of her husband's domestic character, the effect that military memoirs and soldiers' stories have on the Jackson legend, Mary Johnston (yes, of those Johnstons) and her anti-Jackson theme in her novel The Long Roll, Alan Tate's hero-worship (and eventual denial) of Jackson, and more recently Ron Maxwell's portrayal of Stonewall in 2003's Gods and Generals.  Through it all Hettle does not lose sight of the prevailing theme which illustrates how the year of each successive publication and the personal views of the biographers had as much to do with each books' contents as did any source material.  It is truly a revealing study, in both Jackson the man and the art of bibliographical commemoration in general, and I highly recommend it to any who are interested in the topic.

Stephen Lang as Jackson in 2003's Gods and Generals

On a personal note, this reading has also convinced me to reexamine my own personal feelings towards Jackson.  I admit, I've always felt a bit of ambivalence regarding the man: I have a framed photograph of him on my wall, but were this the 1860s you could call me a staunch Unionist.  His battlefield exploits are indeed a bit of tactical genius, though I've often been asked by others in the living history community what would happened had Jackson ever been pitted against a Grant or a Sherman rather than a McClellan, a Howard, or a Banks.  I honestly cannot such an inquiry.  I have admired his story for the "regular man" qualities found within, though now I must ask if those are simply John Cooke's ideas thrust into my consciousness.  I have admired the upward mobility shown in the story of a farm boy going on to become Lee's right hand, though I must now ask the ghost of Robert Dabney if he is in my head.  I have, as many students of military history, found genius in Jackson's campaigns...or is that simply GFR Henderson exerting his influence on this twenty-first century blogger?  These are all questions that I cannot help but ponder, and are questions that would not have coalesced firmly into their present form were it not for Hettle's enlightening study.  Books such as this are too few and far between, I feel, and both we in the historical community as well as the layman would be better off if more works so unpretentiously forced us to challenge our own prejudices and motivations for believing what we do.

Inventing Stonewall Jackson is published by Louisiana State University Press in Baton Rouge, 2011.

Image sources: www.barnesandnoble.com, www.gnews.com