The Re-creation of Thomas J. Jackson

I love Ron Maxwell’s 1993 made-for-television movie, Gettysburg. The casting, the musical score, the campiness, even the fake beards—all outstanding. Alas, its much-anticipated sequel, Gods and Generals (2003), is as bad as its predecessor was great. But my observer’s strategy is not to pile on—not directly. Instead, we’ll explore what the movie gets right and wrong about its chief protagonist, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson (played by Stephen Lang), and then we’ll try to make better sense of how the historical and legendary versions of Jackson intersect in pop culture and memory.

Born in western Virginia in 1824, Thomas Jonathan Jackson lost his father and older sister to typhoid when he was seven, suffered the wrath of a stepfather who loathed him, and then was orphaned when his mother died. He spent his boyhood bouncing around the homes of various relatives before he won a spot at West Point in 1842 and there overcame his lack of formal schooling to graduate in the top third of the Class of 1846—a legendary group that included George B. McClellan, George Pickett, A.P. Hill, Cadmus Wilcox, and George Stoneman.

After a tour of duty in Mexico for which he was decorated and then a brief stint in Florida during the Second Seminole War, Jackson landed at the Virginia Military Institute in 1851 as an instructor of artillery and professor of natural philosophy (better known today as physics). Wed in Lexington in 1853, his wife, Elinor, daughter of a prominent Presbyterian theologian, died in childbirth in 1854. Jackson was married again, in 1857, to Mary Anna Morrison.

It’s on the campus at VMI, amid the secession crisis of 1860–1861, that viewers of Gods and Generals first encounter Major Thomas Jackson. A group of wide-eyed, gray-clad cadets stare at Jackson. Behind him on the blackboard are lessons of air resistance, forces of motion, and trajectory his students have apparently failed to grasp. “I’m forced to conclude,” Jackson admonishes them, “that I must repeat this lesson tomorrow word for word…. [W]ord for word.” This scene captures the essence of the historical Jackson’s unique teaching style: When students did not understand the lectures Jackson read to them from a prepared text—or if they asked clarifying questions—he would repeat the entire lecture word for word. If students still had not mastered the material, or dared ask questions again, they would be given demerits for insubordination.

Jackson’s personality quirks in Gods and Generals are not exclusive to the classroom. Throughout the film, his legendary piety is on display, which in itself would not have been an unusual trait in the 19th century, especially among southerners born and raised during the Second Great Awakening. But this filmic Jackson is the personification of self-righteousness, occasionally to the point of obtuseness, and he comes across as more or less incapable of secular thought when justifying secession or the war it caused. On the one hand, Jackson’s faith allows him to wage war without fear of death. On the other hand, that faith leads him to believe his rank-and-file volunteers should similarly disregard their own mortality and simply trust in God’s plan—an assumption they do not always appear to embrace. These characteristics were true of the historical Jackson. He firmly held that God had endorsed the Confederate cause even after his support for secession caused a major rift with his beloved younger sister, Laura. Furthermore, when it came to letting go of earthly concerns in combat, perhaps the most famous personal statement attributed to Jackson is “my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me. That is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave.”

Library of Congress

Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson

In the movie, Jackson’s record as a military commander is mostly positive. At First Manassas, the nom de guerre “Stonewall” is given him for doggedly holding his position on the Henry House Hill. Jackson and his men perform well in the leadup to Chancellorsville and then execute a crushing assault on the first day of battle. Throughout the film, Jackson’s philosophy of command is to always take the initiative and attack. Here, though, Gods and Generals is playing somewhat looser with the historical Jackson’s resume. To be sure, Jackson enjoyed a highly effective working relationship with Robert E. Lee and did perform exceptionally well in some major battles, including day one at Chancellorsville. Yet the film—which often seems like a biopic—leaves out key details: that it’s possible Jackson’s nickname wasn’t intended to be a compliment; that Jackson was late to arrive multiple times over the course of the Seven Days Battles; that Jackson had a habit of interpreting certain orders literally (to the detriment of what was developing in front of him); and that Jackson often engaged in petty feuds with other officers, most notably Richard Garnett following the 1862 Valley Campaign.

If Gods and Generals takes certain liberties in its presentation of Jackson’s military achievements, it creates his position on race and slavery out of whole cloth. In one scene, Jackson is gazing at the stars as he speaks to a black cook he hired earlier: “You must know there are some of us in this army that are of the opinion that we should be enlisting negroes as a condition for freedom. Your people will be free, one way or the other, the only question is whether the southern government will have the good sense to do it first, and soon, and in so doing seal a bond of enduring friendship between us.” All at once, Jackson disapproves of slavery and professes that after the Confederacy achieves victory, southerners of both races will live in equality and harmony. While Jackson might personally have disliked slavery, the truth is that we don’t know—and can’t know. The sources simply don’t exist to establish his feelings about slavery. One biographer contended that Jackson likely was opposed to slavery but because God had sanctioned it in the Bible, man had no right to challenge the omnipotence of the Almighty in abolishing it. That’s a far cry from lobbying Richmond to create an army of black Confederates.

Photofest

Actor Stephen Lang as Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson in the 2003 movie Gods and Generals

In Gettysburg’s wake, Gods and Generals neglects to critique Jackson as a battlefield commander and makes up an absurd, fictional position on slavery. Yet even we naysayers generally agree that Lang’s performance is quite brilliant in re-creating Jackson’s one-of-a-kind personality and his more memorable eccentricities. Yes, in addition to Presbyterian zeal, dogmatic teaching, and divine fearlessness, audiences also get to see Jackson riding with one arm raised to encourage “circulation.” (His ability to fall asleep virtually anywhere made it into the movie, too.) This prompts the question: How did a film that gets so much of Stonewall Jackson right turn out so bad?

Before attempting to answer, we ought to remember that Jackson is still one of the most intriguing figures of the war. And that the popularity of Gettysburg illustrated how this sort of period Civil War piece still attracted American moviegoers. One explanation for the movie’s failure is that the scripted dialogue in Gods and Generals pales in comparison to Gettysburg’s. Embedded in a nearly four-hour runtime, the stilted prose becomes unbearable. And then certain members of the Gettysburg cast—Martin Sheen as Lee and Tom Berenger as James Longstreet—proved irreplaceable in Gods and Generals; Robert Duvall could not match Sheen. And there is the plot: It attempts to portray far too much of the war for audiences to become attached to anything other than “Stonewall” Jackson. Lang, to his credit, captures much of the allegedly “real” Jackson—but to modern eyes and sensibilities that “real” Jackson is insufferable when not buffered by 160 years.

So how do we reconcile the historical Jackson with his legendary popularity in Civil War memory? We don’t. That’s the magic—the choose your own adventure into memory. We don’t want to see behind the proverbial curtain—or in this case, the stone wall—so we just don’t look. In the 1962 movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, a newspaper editor bluntly states why he won’t print the truth. “This is the West, sir,” he barks. “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” In Jackson’s case, this maxim clearly applied east of the Mississippi as well.

Matthew Christopher Hulbert is Elliott Associate Professor of History at Hampden-Sydney College. An expert on the Civil War in the West, guerrilla violence, and film history, he is the author or editor of five books. His most recent publication, the biography Oracle of Lost Causes: John Newman Edwards and his Never-Ending Civil War (Bison, 2023), was a 2024 Spur Award Finalist.