Civil War Sunday Throwback- The Jackson Women

This month is Women's History Month in the United States.

Today, let us think back on the sacrifices made by women, and how they starred in our history - contributions too often ignored.

Over the years, I've had several blog posts related to Stonewall Jackson, one of the most famous Confederate generals (and perhaps one of the top generals this country has ever seen, although military history is not one of my main interests).

But what about the women in his life?

I wrote this post on Mother's Day in 2013 - and repost it today, in honor of women everywhere.

Civil War Sunday - The Jackson Women

Today, in the United States, it is Mother's Day.

It is important to remember that during the Civil War, life could be short.  Dying during or right after childbirth was common.  Infant mortality was high, as was death from a number of illnesses that are treatable today.

Many casualties of the Civil War came from infection, and illness, not directly from the hazards of the battlefield.  A number of Civil War generals (on both sides) died in action.  Perhaps the most mourned was a Confederate general by the name of Thomas ("Stonewall") Jackson.

150 years ago Friday,"Stonewall") Jackson died from pneumonia.  This followed Jackson's wounding several days earlier, towards the end of the Battle of Chancellorsville, by friendly fire.  His left arm was amputated in a field hospital not long after in an attempt to save his life.  150 years ago today, Jackson's body lay in state.  And in more modern times, candlelight vigils were held on the anniversary of the last night of his life.

But, this made me think of Stonewall Jackson's family, and what their fates were.  What follows is a little slice of 19th century life.  (A genealogy of Thomas Jackson is available online, if you are interested.)  As tragic as Stonewall Jackson's death at the age of 33 was to many, we may want to consider this:

1.  Julia Neele Jackson, Thomas Jackson's mother:  Two years after Thomas (the youngest of her three children) was born, his 6 year old sister and his father died from typhoid fever.  Jackson's mother was 28 and was 9 months pregnant with her fourth child at the time.  The day after Jackson's father died, Julia gave birth to his sister Laura.

A young widow, Julia Jackson supported her three remaining children in various ways, eventually remarrying.  She died from complications of childbirth when she was 33 years old.

2.  Eleanor Junkin Jackson, Thomas Jackson's first wife:  married less than a year to Jackson, she died in childbirth.  A son was stillborn.

3.  Mary Anna Jackson, Thomas Jackson's second wife:  Mary and Thomas had two daughters.  The first daughter died in infancy.  The second daughter, Julia Jackson Christian, was an infant when Jackson died, with Anna (the name she preferred) at his side.

Anna lived into her 80's.  She never remarried and wore clothes of mourning for the rest of her life.  She was a published author of two books.

Julia lived into adulthood, married, and had two children of her own (a boy and a girl) before she died, a young mother, of typhoid fever.  Anna raised her two grandchildren.  The boy, Thomas Jonathan Jackson Christian, died the year I was born.

Julia Preston, Thomas Jackson's granddaughter, lived to 104, passing away  in 1991.

But, in a story so tragic in many ways, there is one more tragedy to explore.  We talk about how the Civil War tore apart so many families. As it happens, Thomas Jackson's family was one such family.  Remember his sister Laura, the sister born a day after their father died?  Her sympathies were with the Union.  And, she paid a huge personal cost for that loyalty.

Laura Jackson Arnold became estranged from her beloved older brother and never reconciled with her family after the war. Her husband divorced her over her Union loyalties.  She died in West Virginia (a part of Virginia that split from that Confederate State and joined the Union on June 20, 1863, the only state to join the Union during the Civil War - in another bit of irony) in 1911.

All civil wars are tragic.  Ours was no exception. As we pay tribute to the mothers in our lives today, let us take a moment to remember the many mothers who suffered (and continue to suffer) in war.

Civil War Sunday - The Descendents

Today, a major genealogy website, ancestry.com, is offering free searches of various databases for its non-paying members.

I decided to take the opportunity to do a little research on my mother's side of the family, one that I don't have that much knowledge of.  I am more fortunate with my father's side, as an uncle did extensive research years ago.  I quickly found I needed skills I did not have enough time to learn, but spent an interesting hour or more stumbling around the site.

Then, I decided to satisfy some curiosity today - do major figures of the Civil War have living direct descendents? Years ago, I had met a man who had claimed George Armstrong Custer (although best known for his death in the famous Battle of Little Big Horn,  he was also a Civil War general) as one of his ancestors. What other people related to the Civil War had descendents, and what had those descendents accomplished?

What I found would take me many days to read about.

Many people who know they are descended from historical figures in the Civil War are proud of that fact, but many also have the philosophy of "don't depend on your ancestry".

It turns out there are a number of famous Civil War related figures who have living descendents- Confederates and Federal figures, abolitionists, and slaves.

Reading through their stories is fascinating, and there are thousand of more stories waiting for the reading - civilians, soldiers and others who lived through the war.  It is estimated that one in 17 people in the United States have an ancestor who fought in the Civil War.

The story of Kenneth Morris, Jr, in particular, inspires me.  A descendent of both Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington, he fights to abolish modern day slavery- just as his great-great-great grandfather, Frederick Douglass, fought to abolish slavery in our country.

Then there is Ulysses S. Grant's great-great grandson, a native of Syracuse (a city about an hour from where I live) who is a museum curator and art expert.

There is Bertram Hayes-Davis, who preserves the memory of his ancestor Jefferson Davis, best known as the President of the Confederate States of America. 

Confederate General Stonewall Jackson (who has a number of ties with New York State) has living descendents although he did not survive the war- his granddaughter, who passed away in 1991, was 104.

Meanwhile, Dennis Chamberlain, a direct descendent of Union General and Battle of Gettysburg hero Joshua Chamberlain, is the latest of a long line of Chamberlains to service in the military.

The Lee family of Virginia also has had a distinguished history, although many of them were not direct ancestors or descendents of the famous Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

There is one missing name, though, from people alive today.  Abraham Lincoln.  The man who was President of the United States during the Civil War, has no direct descendents alive today.  This is his genealogy.

Do you have a famous person or historical figure in your family tree?

Civil War Sunday - The Northern Confederates

We just got back from a trip to South and North Carolina, two states that seceded from the United States at the beginning of the Civil War.  We think of my native New York State as a solidly Union State but you may be surprised at how many Confederate sympathizers lived in New York City - and, yes, even in upstate New York.

It may interest you that, prior to the Civil War, both Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee served at Ft. Hamilton in Brooklyn, in New York City, and that Abner Doubleday, who fired the first defensive shot at Ft. Sumter (the first battle of the Civil War), was the fort commander of Ft. Hamilton in 1861. (Contrary to popular legend, Doubleday did not invent the game of baseball, but that's a story for another time.)

I still haven't gotten to the Civil War museum I blog about below, but will try my best for this year.

This is a rerun of an earlier post from last year, which I think you will enjoy.

The Confederates of Upstate New York

It's funny how life works, because when you are busy traveling hundreds of miles to learn about Civil War history, you can sometimes find it in your own home state of New York.

It's even more fascinating when the history involves a New Yorker who served the Confederacy.  This isn't the only time New York and the Confederacy have been linked - there is the fascinating story of the hamlet of Town Line New York that appears to have seceded from the Union and did not rejoin the Union officially until 1946.

There are a number of fascinating articles online about whether this secession actually happened. (All I can say is that, despite statements that their fire department logo still includes a Confederate flag - their current patch has an American Flag and Flag of the State of New York.)

And then there was Jedediah Hotchkiss.

I had not heard of Hotchkiss when, in March of 2012, I was browsing the wonderful Civil War bookstore located in the National Park at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.  I found a book "Civil War Battles The Maps of Jedediah Hotchkiss". by Chester G. Hearn and Mike Marino.  I quickly found that the book was not a biography of Jedediah Hotchkiss, a schoolteacher and geologist before the Civil War, who ended up becoming the mapmaker for Stonewall Jackson.  (We are coming up on the 150th anniversary of this famous Confederate general's death, and I will be blogging more about him next Sunday.)

Still, I found value in a book that contained some of Hotchkiss' maps, and Civil War era photographs, and I bought it. 

Later last year, my spouse found that one of his co-workers is interested in the Civil War, and this person told him "You've got to go to the Old Stone House Museum in Windsor!"  I work with a couple of people who live in Windsor, (which is a rural village a few miles from here) and it turns out one of them knows the person who runs that museum - she offered to set up a visit for us and her sister, who also loves the study of the Civil War - but we were never able to make the connection.

So, a second time, I ran into Jedediah Hotchkiss. He was born, and grew up in, Windsor, on property where this museum is now located. He later moved to Virginia, which is how he ended up on the side of the Confederacy, making maps for Confederate generals.

So, object lesson here - don't ignore treasures in your backyard.

And now, it will also be time to hunt for other New York Confederates.  None of us should be surprised - few of us today realize just how this war split our nation (and still does, to some extent) and how fighting it made the United States the country it is today.

Do you have a nice regional museum that mainly locals know about?

Civil War Sunday - The Jackson Women

Today, in the United States, it is Mother's Day.

It is important to remember that during the Civil War, life could be short.  Dying during or right after childbirth was common.  Infant mortality was high, as was death from a number of illnesses that are treatable today.

Many casualties of the Civil War came from infection, and illness, not directly from the hazards of the battlefield.  A number of Civil War generals (on both sides) died in action.  Perhaps the most mourned was a Confederate general by the name of Thomas ("Stonewall") Jackson.

150 years ago Friday,"Stonewall") Jackson died from pneumonia.  This followed Jackson's wounding several days earlier, towards the end of the Battle of Chancellorsville, by friendly fire.  His left arm was amputated in a field hospital not long after in an attempt to save his life.  150 years ago today, Jackson's body lay in state.  And in more modern times, candlelight vigils were held on the anniversary of the last night of his life.

But, this made me think of Stonewall Jackson's family, and what their fates were.  What follows is a little slice of 19th century life.  (A genealogy of Thomas Jackson is available online, if you are interested.)  As tragic as Stonewall Jackson's death at the age of 33 was to many, we may want to consider this:

1.  Julia Neele Jackson, Thomas Jackson's mother:  Two years after Thomas (the youngest of her three children) was born, his 6 year old sister and his father died from typhoid fever.  Jackson's mother was 28 and was 9 months pregnant with her fourth child at the time.  The day after Jackson's father died, Julia gave birth to his sister Laura.

A young widow, Julia Jackson supported her three remaining children in various ways, eventually remarrying.  She died from complications of childbirth when she was 33 years old.

2.  Eleanor Junkin Jackson, Thomas Jackson's first wife:  married less than a year to Jackson, she died in childbirth.  A son was stillborn.

3.  Mary Anna Jackson, Thomas Jackson's second wife:  Mary and Thomas had two daughters.  The first daughter died in infancy.  The second daughter, Julia Jackson Christian, was an infant when Jackson died, with Anna (the name she preferred) at his side.

Anna lived into her 80's.  She never remarried and wore clothes of mourning for the rest of her life.  She was a published author of two books.

Julia lived into adulthood, married, and had two children of her own (a boy and a girl) before she died, a young mother, of typhoid fever.  Anna raised her two grandchildren.  The boy, Thomas Jonathan Jackson Christian, died the year I was born.

Julia Preston, Thomas Jackson's granddaughter, lived to 104, passing away  in 1991.

But, in a story so tragic in many ways, there is one more tragedy to explore.  We talk about how the Civil War tore apart so many families. As it happens, Thomas Jackson's family was one such family.  Remember his sister Laura, the sister born a day after their father died?  Her sympathies were with the Union.  And, she paid a huge personal cost for that loyalty.

Laura Jackson Arnold became estranged from her beloved older brother and never reconciled with her family after the war. Her husband divorced her over her Union loyalties.  She died in West Virginia (a part of Virginia that split from that Confederate State and joined the Union on June 20, 1863, the only state to join the Union during the Civil War - in another bit of irony) in 1911.

All civil wars are tragic.  Ours was no exception. As we pay tribute to the mothers in our lives today, let us take a moment to remember the many mothers who suffered (and continue to suffer) in war.

Civil War Sunday - The Confederates of Upstate New York

It's funny how life works, because when you are busy traveling hundreds of miles to learn about Civil War history, you can sometimes find it in your own home state of New York.

It's even more fascinating when the history involves a New Yorker who served the Confederacy.  This isn't the only time New York and the Confederacy have been linked - there is the fascinating story of the hamlet of Town Line New York that appears to have seceded from the Union and did not rejoin the Union officially until 1946.

There are a number of fascinating articles online about whether this secession actually happened. (All I can say is that, despite statements that their fire department logo still includes a Confederate flag - their current patch has an American Flag and Flag of the State of New York.)

And then there was Jedediah Hotchkiss.

I had not heard of Hotchkiss when, in March of 2012, I was browsing the wonderful Civil War bookstore located in the National Park at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.  I found a book "Civil War Battles The Maps of Jedediah Hotchkiss". by Chester G. Hearn and Mike Marino.  I quickly found that the book was not a biography of Jedediah Hotchkiss, a schoolteacher and geologist before the Civil War, who ended up becoming the mapmaker for Stonewall Jackson.  (We are coming up on the 150th anniversary of this famous Confederate general's death, and I will be blogging more about him next Sunday.)

Still, I found value in a book that contained some of Hotchkiss' maps, and Civil War era photographs, and I bought it. 

Later last year, my spouse found that one of his co-workers is interested in the Civil War, and this person told him "You've got to go to the Old Stone House Museum in Windsor!"  I work with a couple of people who live in Windsor, (which is a rural village a few miles from here) and it turns out one of them knows the person who runs that museum - she offered to set up a visit for us and her sister, who also loves the study of the Civil War - but we were never able to make the connection.

So, a second time, I ran into Jedediah Hotchkiss. He was born, and grew up in, Windsor, on property where this museum is now located. He later moved to Virginia, which is how he ended up on the side of the Confederacy, making maps for Confederate generals. 

So, object lesson here - don't ignore treasures in your backyard.  Tomorrow, I'll be contacting my co-worker.  Time to visit.

And now, it will also be time to hunt for other New York Confederates.  None of us should be surprised - few of us today realize just how this war split our nation (and still does, to some extent) and how fighting it made the United States the country it is today.

Do you have a nice regional museum that mainly locals know about?

Civil War Sunday Special Edition - Birds and Battles

On August 28-30, 1862, Federal and Confederate troops fought near Manassas, Virginia and Bull Run Creek for the second time.

Thirteen months earlier, troops had fought the first major battle of the Civil War.  Troops were not battle-tested.  Some local people packed picnic baskets to make a day of it.  No one seemed to know exactly what to do, although they learned fast.


This time it was General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia facing Major General Pope's Army of the Potomac.  Once again, Thomas (Stonewall) Jackson was there. Different battle but the same end result - the Confederates won again, leading to the Maryland Campaign I will be following for the next month.

Now, where death once ruled, birders come to explore the battlefield.

Yes, 150 years later, many people visit the Bull Run (Manassas) battlefields - to bird.  I was a little surprised to discover this battlefield park of some 5,000. acres (the two battles overlapped some of the same territory) spans a lot of different bird habitats.

The list of birds sighted there is quite impressive.

Online, you can even find a list of birds sighted earlier this month in the parking lot of the New York Volunteers monument.  I've read that Bull Run Creek itself is prime birding territory.

I am not a birder, but I have always loved birds - watching them, owning them (earlier in my life), and listening to their songs.  But, except for people preserving history and memory, this land would have been gone.  Based on what has happened in the surrounding area, it is logical to assume that this 5,000 acres would have been paved over with a housing development or shopping center built on the site.

The site where some 3200 Federal and Confederate soldiers died, those three days in August of 1862.

Our American Civil War was horrible, as is all war.

It is humbling, though, to realize that the creatures of Mother Nature do not care - the birds do not care - they have their own concerns and do not trouble themselves with ours.

Civil War Sunday - Onward, Reenactors

It's been a little over a year now since Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson fought at First Bull Run (First Manassas), the first "large" battle of the Civil War.  Both sides have learned the art of fighting against their once fellow countrymen.

You will note I call him Thomas, and not Stonewall.  Jackson felt his nickname of "Stonewall", given to him at First Manassas, was something only for the men he commanded to use), had seen a lot of action since that July, 1861 day near Manassas Junction. There was the Shenandoah campaign and the Peninsula Campaign.  And now, it is time to return to where the first major battle of the Civil War occurred for Round 2.

I'll be catching up with Thomas Jackson and his fellow soldiers at the 150th anniversary of Antietam in September.

But first, I want to talk a little bit about how reenactors have created and engaged my interest in the Civil War.  I've always loved history. But why the Civil War?

 (Picture courtesy of AM of Ramblin'with AM, taken this year in Elmira, NY)

Years back, in a visit to the Town of Binghamton, about an hour from Binghamton, I met a CSA general for the first time.  And, I dare say, it is because of him that I became as interested in the Civil War as I have become.

I went to that reenactment, at Pierce Creek, my first one, in August of 2009 and fell under the spell of a man by the name of Rich Gow, who played CSA General Armistead, who would later be mortally wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Growing up in New York State (and living in NY much of my adult life, I had basically only heard "one side of the story".  Rich Gow told the other side with such passion that I was hooked.

Since then I've been to several reenactments and other Civil War events, including the 150th anniversary of First Bull Run.  But I didn't experience the historical passion (purely G rated, folks) of that day in 2009 until a day in early May this year in Elmira, New York, when I ran into Thomas Jackson.

He was perched on a flood wall, his voice booming.  He was talking to people in character.   I learned a lot about Jackson, and something about the reenactor - whose name I do not know.  In fact, he was so much in character that he asked the audience's permission to take off his heavy wool coat as the afternoon warmed up, and address us in his vest.  Back in those days, he explained that was an R-rated action, and needed the permission of ladies present.

This reenactor has played Jackson for some 10 years.  He said his life and Jackson's have many parallels, and he very much identifies with Jackson  He loves educating people and one of his main missions is to make sure that school children learn more about the Civil War, and Thomas Jackson in particular.  He talked about the feelings of the Confederates with such passion that all the onlookers were mesmerized.

What fascinating people those involved in the Civil War were, and Jackson was no different.

Jackson actually has a link to New York State, having been stationed at Ft. Hamilton for a time.

He became estranged from his sister, who was firmly on the side of the Union.  He died during the war, so we will never know what would have happened if both had survived the war.

Jackson was an extremely devout man.  It colored everything about him, including his bravery in battle, and even his official battle reports.  
And even his last words, spoken as he lay dying from wounds suffered by friendly fire - Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.


I believe the reenactment group that was at Elmira, NY that day in May will be at the Antietam reenactement in September, and I am looking forward to catching up with Jackson once again. And, A.P. Hill, and maybe even author Jeff Shaara.

Maybe some of the reenactors I met at the Battle of Charleston these past two years will be there, too.

I can't wait.