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Inventing Stonewall Jackson – Book review

After one read through Wallace Hettle’s Inventing Stonewall Jackson, it is tempting to believe that careful examination of the few surviving photographs of the Confederate general may reveal more cold, hard details about the character of one of the Civil War’s most memorable figures than any of the magnificent folklore that took root in the years shortly following his accidental death by friendly fire in 1863.

The dark, wavy beard, the discerning brow threatening a mighty furrow, the hollowed, battle-weary cheekbones, the bright, steely eyes that must have been Paul Newman blue—these things we know for sure. The rest? Not so much.

Having refused reporters access to his camps, declined all interview requests and died before he could pen his own memoirs, Jackson certainly makes an enigmatic and eccentric figure. Thankfully, Hettle examines the three seemingly at-odds pillars of Jackson’s personality—swift military cunning, an equally fierce Protestant piety and an ambition for fame one fellow general described as “all-absorbing”—that spawned ageless devotion to him across the South. The result is a fascinating look at the nature of mythmaking and the causes and effects of hero worship.

Hettle dissects the earliest writings on Jackson, those published before his face was cast in bronze and sculpted in marble, before thousands of visitors each year paid homage to the gravesite of his famed warhorse, Little Sorrel, at the Virginia Military Institute. The author digs up a litany of punchy anecdotes, including one penned by a young member of Jackson’s corps named Randolph McKim. Blowing the lid off the notion that the Confederate ranks were filled only with the illiterate, the destitute and the otherwise desperate, McKim writes eloquently about the men serving under “Stonewall.”

“It was a rare group of men,” he writes. “The gentleman, the student, the merchant, the mechanic and the farmer merged into a perfect, all-enduring, never-tiring and invincible soldier.” These are the same 17,000 men Jackson led to victory in the Virginia Valley Campaign over 60,000 Union soldiers.

In this slim volume, 145 digestible pages, Hettle advances swiftly and decisively as Jackson might have—forward through the years to the 20th century, even giving his in-depth analysis of the 2003 feature film Gods and Generals and Jackson’s current standing as a symbol of the South.

“Stonewall” may remain a mystery, but if modern man has indeed played a role in inventing him, Hettle digs deep enough to prove we had plenty of raw materials with which to work.