Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees

“My religious beliefs teach me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time of my death. I do not concern myself with that, but to be always ready whenever it may overtake me. That is the way all men should live, and all men would be equally brave.”

 On May 10, 1863 at 3:15 pm, the Confederate cause sustained its most demoralizing and crippling blow. I reject the consensus of military historians who tout the Battle of Gettysburg as the turning point in the War of  Northern Aggression. I submit the real turning point was the passing from militant to triumphant of the gallant General Thomas Stonewall Jackson; who did so 150 years ago today.

Born in Clarksburg, Virginia (now WV) on Wednesday Jan 21, 1824 to the promising young Attorney Jonathan Jackson and his beautiful wife, Julia Beckwith Neale. His early years would be replete with sadness. His father and older sister Elizabeth died of typhoid fever when young Jackson was just three. His mother would wed  Blake Baker Woodson in 1830. His financial problems and disdain for his stepchildren led to Thomas and his sister Laura Ann being sent to live with maternal relations. Sadder yet, on Sunday, December 4 of the following year, Julia died of childbirth complications. She was just 33 years old.

His youth was spent tending sheep and oxen and working at the grist mill of his uncle, Cummins Jackson. It was during this portion of his young life that he began to display the unwavering resolve which punctuated his military career and especially his Presbyterian faith! He would spend countless hours reading at night by the light of burning pine knots he obtained from one of his uncle's slaves. In exchange, he taught the slave to read and write; whereupon the latter would eventually join the Underground Railroad.

This was the first in what would prove many endeavors of  genuine, heartfelt outreach to Black people..........But don't count on reading about it in any "modern" textbooks!!!

Despite being inadequately schooled, he went to West Point in 1842. Initially, academics proved a challenge, to say the minimum. He buckled down and ended up ranking 17th out of 59 cadets in 1846.
                                                             

It was during the Mexican War that he began to more acutely ponder his religious convictions. At one point, he is said to have conferred with a Roman Catholic priest. The intercessory role of priests-as opposed to the priesthood of all believers-and the hierarchical governance of the Romish church would repulse him. A few years later in Lexington, the epiphany promised to the elect would take place which led him to be a bulwark of our faith. Yet, in proper Christian humility, he never presumed to be a gauge; for that distinction belongs but to Christ!

While in Lexington he taught at the distinguished VMI. Disciplined and no nonsense, much of his curriculum remains taught to this very day. Admittedly, there was a slight flaw. He would commit various texts and material to memory and recite in class ver batim. At times, there were instances of cadets asking him to merely elucidate, which he took as insubordination. It got to a point that in 1856 a group of alumni spearheaded an effort to have him removed from the faculty. Little became of their efforts, as Jackson's supporters greatly outnumbered his detractors. He was lauded by many parents of cadets for his implacable devotions to country and plenary morality!

His esteem was loftier yet among the Virginians of African descent; having taught regular Sunday school classes for the young of that community, who referred to him lovingly as "Marse Major". The classes would run so well that the pastor, the Rev. Dr. William Spotswood White would say:

"In their religious instruction he succeeded wonderfully. His discipline was systematic and firm, but very kind. ... His servants reverenced and loved him, as they would have done a brother or father. ... He was emphatically the black man's friend."

During the War of Northern Aggression, he would become known as a disciplined cavalry commander who drilled his soldiers almost relentlessly. In battle, he was known to lift his hand; which was interpreted by many to be an entreaties to God for victory! He was never so enmeshed in duty that he couldn't witness for Christ!!................. Yet, his survival of the war was not deigned.

Gen Smith of the Virginia Military Institute communicated the sorrowful intelligence of his death in this manner:



Adjutant General's Office Va.
May 11th 1863

Major Gen. F.H. Smith
Supt., Virginia Military Institute
Sir:

By Command of the Governor I have this day to perform the most painful duty of my official life in announcing to you and through you to the Faculty & Cadets of the Virginia Mil. Institute the death of the great and good--the heroic and illustrious Lieut. General T.J. Jackson at 15 minutes past 3 oclock yesterday afternoon.
This heavy bereavement over which every true heart within the bounds of the Confederacy mourns with inexpressible sorrow--must fall if possible with heavier force upon that Noble State Institution to which he came from the battle-fields of Mexico, and where he gave to his native state the first years service of his modest and unobtrusive but public spirited and useful life.
It would be a senseless waste of words to attempt a eulogy upon this great among the greatest of sons who have immortalized Virginia. To the Corps of Cadets of the Virginia Military Institute, what a legacy he has left you, what an example of all that is good and great and true in the character of a Christian Soldier.
The Governor directs that the highest funeral honors be paid to his memory, that the customary outward badges of mourning be worn by all the officers and cadets of the Institution.

By command, W.H. Richardson, A.G.
By Command of Major Genl. Smith. A.G. Hill, Actg. Adjt., V.M.I

                                        His clay rests in Virginia in the joyful hope of the rapture.

Now that a century and a half has passed since his departure for the Kirk Triumphant, we need to more closely guard the legacies of mortal vessels like Jackson as never before. As the revisionists exhaustively endeavor to destroy any vestige of moral absolutism, it follows in thought they in tandem work to besmirch the promulgators of these truths. This is magnified in Jackson's case; as he raised his sword for a cause blatantly falsely portrayed by revisionist historians with Guevaristly sinister agendas. Consequently, it is abysmally misunderstood by the majority today! To put it another way with no pun intended, the causes for the bloodiest war in America's history were not all black and white.

What would General Jackson think of the modern state of Presbyterianism?

That's an open and shut one, now isn't it? He doubtlessly would praise God for how marvelously the faith has been established in Latin America, Africa and Asia. In point of fact, had God allowed him to see the war's end, his plan was to travel to Africa to do mission work there. The state of Protestantism in the mainstream on the other hand would have caused his blood to boil. As prohibitively difficult as it may have been for him to envisage the heterogeneity of post-modern America, he would not have accepted it as an excuse for the enshrinement of Scriptural declension and feel good liturgy designed to pacify-if not entertain the occupants of the pews on Sunday morning; effectively reducing liturgy in the virtual whole of the mainstream to an Arminian freak show!