‘ROADSIDE ATTRACTION’ JACKSON

n May 1862, Union troops from New York—or any state represented in the Army of the Potomac, for that matter—would not have welcomed running into anything associated with Lt. Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. But when friends of mine from western New York, heading south on Interstate 95 for vacation, came upon a brown road sign in central Virginia referencing the Confederate general, they were delighted. “We saw the sign for the Stonewall Jackson Shrine and thought of you,” they texted me, knowing my affinity for the legendary Army of Northern Virginia commander. This particular sign near I-95’s Thornburg, Va., exit—since renamed the Stonewall Jackson Death Site—had caught their eyes, just as it does for thousands of battlefield tourists every year. ¶ Stonewall Jackson, of course, was mortally wounded on May 2, 1863, at the height of his great triumph at the Battle of Chancellorsville. That afternoon, Jackson’s Corps had rolled up Maj. Gen. O.O. Howard’s 11th Corps on the Army of the Potomac’s right during a daring flank attack still studied by military theorists. The assault crippled Union Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker’s offensive. But Jackson wanted more. As evening began to fall, the general impatiently conducted a reconnaissance in the thick woods in front of his lines, eager to discover the Union positions and perhaps continue his attack. A rippling volley from troops in one of his own North Carolina brigades, however, knocked Jackson from his horse. ¶ Jackson endured amputation of his left arm and a jarring 12-mile ambulance ride the next day to Thomas C. Chandler’s “Fairview” Plantation near Guinea Station, site of the shrine that caught my friend’s attention. He remained at one of the plantation’s outbuildings until he died