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.