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Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend
- 07/27/10
- 86
I love biography. That’s probably the tenth time I’ve begun a review with those words, yet it’s no less true now than the first time I penned them. The more I read of biography, the more I am enamored with it and the more I see just how valuable it is to my life and faith.
I was in Virginia recently, spending a week on vacation. I decided the occasion merited a biography of a Virginian. That led me to choose between Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. In the end Jackson won in a shootout. I turned to the epic work by James Robertson. Written in 1997, this biography remains the definitive word on Jackson. I can’t imagine how it will ever be equaled.
Over the years Jackson has been variously portrayed as a great general and a great Christian. It seems that few biographers have managed to do equal justice to the two most notable emphases of this extraordinary man. On the one hand he was a brilliant military strategist who time and again relied on speed and surprise to catch his enemy off-guard. On the other hand, he was a man who deeply loved the Lord and who cherished his relationship with the Savior. He was a man who suffered much from his earliest days to his final days. Fatherless at two, orphaned at seven, he also witnessed the death of two of his siblings, two of his children and his first wife. Some of his closest friends died and he was estranged from others by the war that devastated his nation. Yet through it all Jackson remained absolutely fixed upon the firm foundation of God’s sovereignty. Always he placed his trust in God and always he sought to submit himself to God’s will and to delight in God’s providence.
The facts of Jackson’s life are well-known so I will forego those to comment instead on the lessons I’ve learned from Jackson and to comment on what makes this biography so sublime.
Determination. I saw in Jackson the importance of determination, of being very serious about life. He determined that he could be whatever he would resolve to be. He was determined to rise above his circumstances and to make something of himself. Yet this would be difficult for a poor orphan boy. Throughout life, whether it was in the classroom, the sanctuary or in social situations, he was determined to do better, to honor God. And by God’s grace and by sheer determination, he did so, getting better and better at just about everything he put his mind to.
Love. Jackson sought to obey Romans 12:16 which says “Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.” He was not too proud to work with slaves, the lowest of the low. In fact, he loved them as brothers and sisters and treated them with dignity. He was a man of his time, a person who could tolerate slavery even if he did not really approve of it. It is easy to portray him as some kind of a monster for having slaves. And yet we can’t deny his love for them, his desire to treat them well and to see them become brothers and sisters in Christ.
Trust. Jackson had total confidence in the will of God and the goodness of God. He knew the character of God and allowed that to be his starting point. He didn’t allow his pain to redraw the character of God so that God was shaped by pain and suffering. Instead, he knew and loved God and allowed God to speak, to comfort, to console him in pain. He studied God and walked with God in the good times so that his hope was firm in times of sorrow. Not only this, but he saw God’s sovereign hand in everything. Whether things went well or poorly, he saw God’s hand in it and willingly submitted himself.
Prayer. Jackson was a man of prayer. He prayed all the time. He would pray before battles and during battles, often holding his hands up in prayer, asking God to bless and protect his men. He would rise in the night, even when he had had very little sleep and he would pray. He was never too busy to pray. He would go to services held by his chaplains and pray with them. He prayed with his wife and prayed over his daughter. He never grew tired of prayer and always saw the need for it. He was a true prayer warrior who would do nothing, make no important decision, without taking it before God. He had a right assessment of both himself and God and knew the utter importance of being on his knees.
These are at least some of the lessons I’ve learned from his life, lessons I hope to apply to my own life.
As for what makes Robertson’s biography so sublime, well, that is an easy one. It is simply that I could glean all of this. In a biography about a general, a military man, I was able to peer deeply into his life to see not just his accomplishments on the battlefield, but more importantly, the heart of the man, the Christian character of the man. Robertson showed his subject at this best and worst, at home and on the battlefield. This is one of those biographies where to read it is to meet the subject. Jackson was a multifaceted individual and Robertson portrays him in all of his complexity.
I think this may well be the best biography I’ve ever read and if not that, it’s the one I’ve enjoyed reading the most. I enjoyed it so much that I followed it with three other books on Jackson: Stonewall Jackson’s Book of Maxims (a good look at the principles through which he sought to improve himself), Beloved Bride: The Letters of Stonewall Jackson to His Wife (enjoyable, but read the biography first) and Stonewall Jackson: The Black Man’s Friend (an excellent look at Jackson’s faith and his relationship to blacks, both slave and free). Whether or not you are interested in Jackson’s military accomplishments, you will still find great value in reading about his life and learning from his faith, his trust, his determination, his love. Though by no means a perfect man, he is a man who showed clear evidence of his love for the Lord and his desire to honor him in all of life. And in that way, his life can serve as a lesson to any of us.
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at 
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Comments (86)
Thanks for this review. I’ve read the definitive work on Lee by Dowdey but have never read a biography on Jackson. I was particularly interested to learn that he had been orphaned. Obviously that is close to my heart.
Now I’ll have to put this one on my must read list.
Your love of reading is evident in your great skill as a writer. Your ability to crank out so much high-quality material on an almost daily basis leaves your blog unparalleled in the Christian blogging world. Keep up the good work, brother.
I am a graduate of Virginia Tech and I took Robertson’s course. His lectures on Lee and Jackson were the best of a good bunch.
BV - I’ve heard that his courses on the Civil War are exceptional.
Les - I’ve got Emory Thomas on Lee lined up first. He seems like a good one to begin with as he’s not revisionist (that I know of) and yet he also reflects some of the more modern scholarship. I’ve also got Freeman’s one-volume condensed work that I’ll read eventually.
Thanks Tim. I’ll have to also check out Thomas’ work.
Also, watch Dr. Joseph Pipa speak on Jackson here or listen to the same lecture here
Help me out with this one…because I’ve heard these comments from about Jackson and Lee from many. (Note: I live about 40 minutes from Gettysburg and have visited and even conducted tours there—I’m a big fan of Civil War history as well)
When you step back from Jackson and look at the fact that he helped lead a Civil War, killing, not only fellow citizens, as well—no doubt—brothers in Christ by the tens of thousands so that one set of privileged people could keep another set of unprivileged people as property to maintain their culture and standard of living. How can we so quickly make a claim that, “he was a man who deeply loved the Lord and who cherished his relationship with the Savior,” when his life was dedicated to such a horror?
How can we say his life aligned to anything near the will of God?
When you think of the giant of Wilberforce, who gave “his last full measure of devotion” to wipe slavery away and you look at Jackson who gave his to support to a system that would not do without it and went to war over it. How can we separate that man’s faith from those dire actions.
What would the mothers, widows, and children of the men who lost their lives while Jackson lead with determination, faith and service say? How can these things be reconciled under the umbrella of God’s kingdom and Jesus’ lordship in his life?
I really struggle with this! How can we call him a great man of faith with a legacy of a war to preserve the horror of slavery?
Tim, you claim you see into the man to the Christian character in the man…how did that character matter if it meant the alignment of his being to effectively kill tens of thousands to preserve an injustice? To kill men fighting for the very thing aligned to God’s kingdom! Men fighting to undo a profoundly sinful thing! What good was his faith if it didn’t inform this?
I welcome your thoughts on this because I have real problems reconciling the two. Thanks!
In all seriousness to your great question, Mike, couldn’t the same be asked of all the great men who fought brutal wars and claimed God’s love and mercy for themselves? Couldn’t we throw away all of David’s Psalms and Proverbs based on the fact that he was not only a conniving murderer, but an adulterer as well?
We are wicked people - our faith in a Holy God is our only righteousness.
Mike,
I was surprised to see you write that you were a big fan of the Civil WAr, and then write this:
“When you step back from Jackson and look at the fact that he helped lead a Civil War, killing, not only fellow citizens, as well—no doubt—brothers in Christ by the tens of thousands so that one set of privileged people could keep another set of unprivileged people as property to maintain their culture and standard of living.”
Do you honestly think that is what Lee and Jackson and others were fighting for? Because what they actually said they were fighting for was quite different.
Mike, slavery was not the main issue of the Civil War. States’ rights was probably the biggest issue.
Thanks Renee…yea, I thought about this as well. And yes, some wars need to be fought. That is why they called WWII “the good war.” And I agree. Sometimes evil understands nothing other than violence and it needs to be destroyed by violence.
As Winston Churchill quoted George Orwell who said, “Men sleep peacefully in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
So hear me clearly, I’m not against all war. Some need to be fought. What troubles me is how we almost deify someone like Jackson (and I live south of the Mason Dixon so you hear it here) and they talk about his great faith, and his amazing character and standing opposite of it is this horror that was Slavery in the 1800’s. It really was evil!
Families separated, systematic rape, forced labor, deplorable work conditions, people reduced to property. How are we not still living with the legacy of it today—that is how evil it was. Need I go on? This is the anti-kingdom! We need to let this sink in.
I understand that Jackson—like all of us are products of our culture and to “see” outside of that culture is difficult. But isn’t that merely “the narrow road?” Isn’t that the most basic plan for any disciple? To live not as the world lives. The next step is to fight evil with good (Romans 12). He would have been truly heroic to me if he had resigned his commission and fought for the Union because his faith instructed him to sacrifice for justice and those things that aligned with God’s kingdom (and in a military sense our constitution and bill of rights, but those are secondary to this discussion). Now he is truly a hero in every sense!
I’m just asking us to look critically at the man here. He fought, killed, murdered, lead, and encouraged a system fighting for an anti-kingdom issue. How can we say, really, that was Godly, or that God was in it?
If you took Jackson and place him in a battle for abortion. Same guy, same characteristics, same fierceness, would we call that Godly? How is it different—really? How do we really discern these issues? I’m not sure the answers but genuinely struggle with this.
I could not agree with Mike more… Jackson was part or a tool in a war fought to enslave one set of people by another group (of privileged) people. It is repulsive and repugnant in every way.
As for those who try to say “the main issue of the Civil War wasn’t slavery but state’s rights” please stop deluding yourself … what right did the states want that the Federal govt was denying them? yep, that would be the right to enslave people.
There is just not disguising it: the Civil War was fought over slavery, something abhorrent to all right thinking people.
How to make those who fought to perpetuate slavery heroes is, therefore, very very difficult. Some of those men recognized their contradictions in their profession and practice while others did not. It seems very hard for me to see Jackson as “loving his slaves like brothers” - um, I wouldn’t enslave anyone I loved like my brother would you?
I fear that we are so removed from the depredations of slavery and the horrors of the Civil War that we can now look on those who were flat out on the wrong side with admiration. I doubt we would do such if we lived in 1870, or were burying friends in blue coats after one of Jackson’s “brilliant military strategies.”
I think you can introduce that…go visit the Lincoln memorial and read both the Gettysburg address and Lincoln’s second inaugural address that are carved on the walls on both sides of Lincoln and I think you’ll find it clear what he was fighting for.
A lot of people want to argue it was about state’s right. But their rights to do what? Live like they wanted. To do that they needed, depended on slavery. All roads lead back to that. It is immoral. Read Wilberforce! There is a giant!
He would have been truly heroic to me if he had resigned his commission and fought for the Union because his faith instructed him to sacrifice for justice and those things that aligned with God’s kingdom (and in a military sense our constitution and bill of rights, but those are secondary to this discussion). Now he is truly a hero in every sense!
The problem here is that you’re making the Civil War all about slavery where South = bad and North = good. But the true issues were much deeper than that. Neither side was entirely in the right and neither side was entirely in the wrong. It was much more complicated (as these things usually are).
Granted slavery was horrific and inexcusible, but it’s too easy to make the war all about that one issue.
Are you serious?
The civil war was about the states’ rights TO OWN SLAVES.
When Lincoln was elected, he was viewed as an abolitionist, and he was castigated by newspapers in the south as the “n-word president.”
There is immense historical evidence that the civil war was all about slavery, and the few who claimed “state’s rights” were using that as a cover for slavery. It’s intellectually dishonest for people to use the facade of state’s rights. It’s one last attempt at claiming honor for the travesty that was the South. BTW, “state’s rights” was later used to justify segregation, but thank God for a man named Martin Luther King.
Whether or not Jackson was kind to slaves or not is irrelevant. He led Confederates to kill many Christians brothers so slaves could remain beaten, raped, killed, stolen from their homeland….
BTW, Renee. Unless I’m mistaken, David repented of his grievous sins. I don’t think there’s any evidence at all that Jackson repented of his.
Joey said “Do you honestly think that is what Lee and Jackson and others were fighting for? Because what they actually said they were fighting for was quite different.”
Do we honestly think that what they SAID they were fighting for matters? Every war has had those who would justify it and find a “righteous” meaning for it somehow.
In the end it doesn’t matter what Lee, Jackson and Co. said about the War — they were in the wrong. What they did wasn’t heroic, gallant, or to be ever imitated.
Just ask yourself, “What if the South had triumphed?” What if the South had won? Does anyone imagine that black people in the DisUnited States would have the rights they have this day?
There is always refuge to be found in “this is complex and complicated.” But in the end one side fought for freedom and the other fought for slavery. How hard is it to figure out what side was right and what side was wrong?
Again, just ask yourself “What if the South had won?” Which, by the way, they very nearly did. Would black people had been bettered if the South had won?
We all know the answer… and we all know the truth: Stonewall Jackson is not a hero, any more than Attila the Hun is a hero.
For all the talk of what a fine Christian he was would you want to swap places with him on judgement day? I sure wouldn’t!
Tim,
It was mainly about slavery…like I said, read Lincoln’s second inaugural address! The meat of the address is all about the evil and injustice of it. C’mon…read it
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres32.html
You want to generalize it and separate the man from his deeds. But how are they not on some significant level also the fruit of his life?
Besides what would you call those who fought against it? Indifferent? I do call them good. Those who fought to preserve it? I do call them bad. Jackson at some level got this wrong. No one is talking about that.
All good points, Mike. In Hebrew scriptures, men were said to be good men if they were kind to their slaves. Slavery is insanity, no question about it. But maybe peoples’ inconsistencies (believing in God yet supporting slavery, believing in God yet committing adultery, believing in God yet having racist tendencies) speaks more about God’s mercy for us than our faith in Him.
Both the Gettysburg Address and his second Inaugural address were significantly after the war was under way. Let’s look at what he said beforehand.
“Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that—
I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”
That is from his first inaugural address.
Listen, Lincoln is my favorite President, he was a political genius and a great leader. Evidence of that is that fact the so many people think of the Civil War as a war over slavery.
Bou,
You’re right - there may be no evidence - but thank God I don’t have to judge Jackson based on my limited knowledge of his motives and his deathbed confessions.
Right, at the first address he was trying to avoid a war…a politically right thing to do I guess. And as a politician on some level a pragmatist.
But by the second address we see, what I think is repentance on some level. Read Lincoln’s words…
“One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
Again, “These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war.”
Look, I didn’t want this to become a debate on the cause of the war (apparently too late) I wanted it to be a discussion about how we praise people who live out a profound contradiction. Can/Should we really praise them as Tim seems to do. Jackson needed to repent!!!! No one is talking about that (one writer did…) What do we do/say about that?
Jackson needed to repent!!!! No one is talking about that (one writer did…) What do we do/say about that?
I think the tension is what makes him such a powerful figure to study. I think 100 years from now people will be aghast at Christians’ complicity in the abortion of millions of babies. Yes, we say “abortion is wrong” and support those who fight it. But from the perspective of history, I think we’ll look awfully complacent. And there’s some truth to that.
Again, Jackson was pro-slavery to some extent, in so far as he thought it was God’s will. He had a very powerful sense of God’s sovereignty and at times it may have gone too far—he saw even something likely slavery as God’s will for a certain people for a certain time and therefore felt that it would be going against God to immediately eradicate it. Or something like that. It’s actually hard to tell exactly.
Like Lee and others, he saw that the South was so tied to slavery that to immediately eradicate it would prove devastating to the south. He preferred to let it die a natural death, something that would have happened eventually. I think most historians believe that even without the Civil War, slavery would have eventually disappeared. It was simply too big a contradiction for a people who were still largely informed by the Bible. This may not have been the best way of dealing with slavery, but this is what he held to. He wanted slavery to disappear and to Jackson it was a question of how and when.
I think this is getting disjointed. I agree that Jackson was complicit in a great evil. But we’re wrong to then portray him as nothing more than that evil or to say that he couldn’t possibly be a godly man AND a man who believed that slavery was acceptable in some contexts.
I pastor a small church in Richmond, VA. Almost all of my family is from the South and still lives in the South. For some folks in some parts of this country, the Civil War is still called The War of Northern Aggression or The Lost Cause, and folks who think that things were okay between Black and White till the North interfered. What caused the Civil War is very much a live issue, and all too often I hear people argue that it was about states rights.
But look back at the history of the United States: the Three-Fifths Compromise, the Northwest Ordinance, the Missouri Compromise, the Nullification Crisis, the Wilmot Proviso and Nashville Convention, the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Dred Scott, the formation of the Republican Party from the remnants of the Whigs and the Free Soilers, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the fact that Lincoln was not even on the ballot in most states south of the Mason-Dixon line precisely because the Republican Party adopted an anti-slavery platform plank.
Lincoln made the statements he made prior to the Emancipation Proclamation at least in part because the fate of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware, all slave states, hung in the balance. In addition, Lincoln did have real concerns legally about the scope of his authority due to the legal compromises made over the decades. Slavery has hardwired into the economy and political life of most slave-holding states, so most opponents of slavery were hoping for the gradual death of slavery on economic grounds, which is why the political battles preceding the Civil War focused on eliminating the spread of slavery into new territories and states.
The Civil War was about states rights? Indeed, if by states rights we mean the right of states to regulate the issue of slavery.
If you are ever in Richmond, go to the Virginia Historical Society. It is free and a pretty good little museum. And its presentation on the Civil War debunks the notion that states rights was ever a stand-alone issue. Slavery was the real issue.
So please don’t invoke states rights, and please don’t invoke the tired line that “it was complicated.” It may have been complicated for men such as Jackson and Lee, who in the end sided with Virginia rather than the Union (Lee once said that if Virginia had not seceded, he would not have resigned his commission from the U.S. Army). The machinations, manoeuvers, and rhetoric may have been complicated. But the basic issue was not. It was slavery. It had been since 1789.
Bou,
Hey. You might want to relax with the “intellectually dishonest” thing :-). As a History major (yeah I’ll pull that card :-) I can tell you that, unscientifically, most scholarship agrees that Lincoln simply wanted to save the Union, however that was possible. In the beginning, he tried desperately to make sure that slavery was NOT the issue of the way (he needed the border slave states to side with the North. See Maryland etc.)…however, as the war went on, he needed to make sure that Europe would not side with the South. He therefore tried to make slavery the main issue (knowing that Europe would not side with the South when the main issue was moral.) Actually, Lincoln himself made this clear. One of his most famous quotes was that if he could save the Union by freeing every slave, he would. If he could save the Union without freeing a single slave, he would.
If Bou, Mark, Mike and others cannot reconcile in their minds that a good man could fight for their country (in this case, Virginia) when their country enslaved men, that’s fine. As long as they admit that they can then not approve of any wars fought by men who supported, explicitly or implicitly, the institution of slavery. This, of course, means they cannot support Washington, Jefferson, Henry, Hamilton etc., or the war that they fought.
One more point, and then I’m done. It’s been well-covered that Jackson regarded black men, slave or free, as morally equal to white men. Lincoln, my favorite president, did not. The issue, slavery, was clearly wrong, unequivocally. For some reason, and I wish to God I knew the answer, there were good men at that time who were very deceived.
Tim, well said. Again it is much too simplistic to just say, “Jackson needed to repent.”
Sorry, the point I was making in my first paragraph was that clearly the issue was states rights. Did states that freely joined a Union have a right to freely leave? Within that question were many other issues, and yes, slavery was one of the main ones. However, it is revisionists history to claim that slavery caused the war. It was the main issue to some people. It was a minor issue to some.
Much as I am glad that my side lost and slavery is gone, it is simply ahistorical to claim the war was only over slavery. If you do any serious reading on the war you would find that the great majority of the southern troops had never owned slaves. Many southerners west of the Mississippi,especially in the great state of Texas, had never even seen a slave. They fought because of the same principles that brought about the revolutionary war - the idea that people who lived far away (whatever that means) should not dictate to locals (whatever that means) how they should live. The federal union came about as a voluntary pact among colonies. Slavery, evil and despicable that it was and is, was a state choice. Many in the south wanted slavery to end, much like what wilberforce helped to do in England. But for men like lee and Jackson, when you bring an army into their own neighborhood without the backing of the voluntary pact ( the constitution) then they chose to defend their home-Virginia. It is dishonest to ignore what they said and imply secret motives.As a missionary who has adopted several non white children I condemn all racist attitudes and actions. As I have studied the civil war for many years it has brought deep sorrow to understand how badly this hurt the country and more so the church and the cause of Christ. If I could have my druthers , it would be to unwind time and bring an end to slavery such as occurred in England where none had to die, as opposed to the war between the states, where over 600,000 died to resolve this terrible issue. In some ways the war and Darwin came simultaneously and started a dilution of American christianity that continues to this very day.
The Civil War was about states rights? Indeed, if by states rights we mean the right of states to regulate the issue of slavery.
I am no great authority on this time period (or any other, for that matter) but my understanding is that this simplifies things just a bit too much. While the issue of states rights at this time was clearly connected to slavery, Southern states were concerned with future issues as well. If they ceded on this matter, they were concerned that this would open doors to other future episodes of what they would consider trampling on states rights. So slavery was the trigger and the basis of all the talk about states rights at this time, but it cannot be entirely separated from other issues.
Good points Tim,
I think the Abortion issue, as a comparison, helps to clarify the issue for me. No doubt history will judge us (probably harshly and rightly) for our complacency. But I can’t imagine in 100 years praising a figure who fought with “brilliant military strategy” for it! Not only killing unborn children, but protesters, pastors, and their congregations.
I’m sorry but I can’t stretch “Godly” to go that far. And I think that is what is most bothering me. How are we to then define Godly? What does a disciple really look like? Just what you believe in your theological framework or how it informs your life and choices? Willard says to determine a disciple, “you need to observe a person’s Loves and Habits.” Another authors describes a disciple as, “A cooperative follower of Jesus, living in creative goodness, for the sake of others, through the power of the Holy Spirit.”
And how does Jackson stack against that? Not with complacency, not with creative goodness, not for the sake of the weakest (orphans and widows—and those without power) but with action, willful action. He fought to preserve slavery, not to let it atrophy and die. So that is contradictory to what you said.
And if the biography leaves these key and essential elements out (I understand, how can it know all these details…) how can you recommend it as a good biography? This seems pretty central. If he hadn’t fought…if he “sat this one out.” I doubt we would be reading and blogging about him. But he fought—to support sin. To keep it alive. I’m sorry if I “disjointed” this thread, but I guess I feel pretty strong about this. We really need to discern what we praise.
This will be my last point, I’ve probably overstayed my welcome on this one…sorry.
With reluctance I enter into a debate on the merits of the Civil War. For those who wish to watch two excellent scholars debate each other on the Biblical merits of each side:
The Great Civil War Debate
http://www.theapologeticsgroup.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=239
What most people obviously don’t know (including the commentators here) is that the South was already on a gradual emancipation plan. If not for the deep-south slave-owners who held the vast majority of slaves and thereby were incredibly influential because of their wealth, we might not have had a Civil War. And if not for both sides antagonizing each other and just coming to the table, 600,000 men might have been spared the wrath of two antagonistic, radical, rhetoric-spewing political parties.
After the Civil War, there was a little thing called “Reconstruction”. With the combining effects of slavery stopped, brutal-purposeful damage to the south’s infrastructure (especially by Sherman), and the loss an entire generation of working men (30% of southern white males 18-40 were dead); The South has continued to languish, economically and socially, until the 1960’s around the same time as the Civil Rights finally fully came about.
I just read McPherson’s excellent work on the battle of Antietam. Truth be told, only a third of the book is on the battle, the rest is on the context before and after. He came to the same conclusion I did. Slavery was a pawn in all of this, it was an important pawn, but a pawn none the less.
Lincoln used slavery first and foremost as a political and military tactic. The sooner people realize that the sooner we can get to what the debate was actually all about. Not just the state/federal rights, not just slavery, not just the economy, not just social foundations, but a complex combination of all of the above (and more).
In the end, Tim says what I’m saying, only in a quicker way around ‘bout. Maybe that’s why he’s such a good writer ! xD
But I can’t imagine in 100 years praising a figure who fought with “brilliant military strategy” for it! Not only killing unborn children, but protesters, pastors, and their congregations.
But that’s the thing—in Jackson’s mind, in his world, he was not fighting to maintain slavery. He was fighting for his state which he saw was about to be invaded in a way that he felt was unjust. If Canada invaded the US today, we might say in 100 years that the soldiers defending the US are defending the right to abortion. But they’re not. They are defending their nation. Abortion is legal in the US but it doesn’t define the US.
Again, this is not to defend Jackson’s views of slavery. But I think we need to understand him as a product of his time and place. It’s much the same as when we read of the faith of believers before the Reformation. Often their faith looks very little like ours, and yet we understand that God reveals grace progressively at times and that people can have incredible blind spots. Are we going to condemn Martin Luther for the comments he made about Jews late in life? People, even Christians, are far too multi-faceted to define them by a single issue. And especially so when that issue is not a first-order doctrine. Slavery is abhorrent, but slavery is not the gospel.
I look for the gospel first. Did Jackson understand the gospel? He sure seemed to. He trusted in Christ and relied on Christ moment-by-moment. He was a Christian, I’m convinced. So now we have a professed Christian who also believes that slavery may exist. The easy thing to say that the two cancel each other out. The harder thing to do is to get into that tension and try to understand how it can exist.
This will be my last point, I’ve probably overstayed my welcome on this one…sorry.
People have been known to do that. But I’ve very much enjoyed your contributions to the discussion and don’t feel that you’ve overstayed your welcome. It’s good to push one another in a respectful, brotherly way. We’ve all got lots to learn.
I’d like to add one thing to what I said.
This is to the commentators who are a slandering dead, godly man’s reputation. And really should read of how many soldiers came to know Christ because of his testimony before they so blindly toss judgments upon them.
If Americans had 1/10 the fortitude of Jackson, we would have long ago stopped abortion, stopped the downward spiral of our economy into trillions of dollars of debt, stopped illegal immigration, and stopped the greatest ecological disaster in a week or two flat rather than 60-90 days.
But we don’t. We have you. And we have me. God help us.
I just burned all of my works of Jonathan Edwards.
Thanks, Mike, for saving me from reading from a slave owner who could obviously have nothing good to say given that particular designation.
Seriously, though….this is one of those issues that I, as a southerner, don’t think other people can understand (from the southern point of view) unless you are a southerner.
90% of the Confederate army didn’t own slaves; 10% did. All of those men weren’t fighting just for slavery to be kept around.
It ran deeper than that. It included fear of blacks “taking over” (whatever that might have meant to them), fear of northern political policies, fear of losing everything by agrarianism being supplanted by industrialism, pride in their region (the “we can do this ourself” mentality ala the american revolution), as well as many other issues.
It’s important to not judge the people of previous periods of time by the standards of our time. That is unfair and arrogantly assumes that we have it together and they didn’t. None of us have it together.
It’s important to not judge the people of previous periods of time by the standards of our time. That is unfair and arrogantly assumes that we have it together and they didn’t.
I think that may be overstating it a little bit. When we know something is objectively right or wrong, we can “judge” people on that basis. But always we need to understand that we are fallible, sinful people who undoubtedly have giant blind spots. There will be things future generations will say about us to which we are equally blind.
Logan makes a valid point about Jackson. He was instrumental in real gospel progress that occurred during the war. Many soldiers were saved during the war (some go so far as to say there was a revival among Confederate forces). This seems as if it is the kind of evidence we’d look for from a believer.
J. William Jones, a chaplain for the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, wrote a book entitled Christ in the Camp, which outlined the work of chaplains in the Confederacy in their preaching and gospel tract distribution. Really, some fascinating stories.
Jones, along with James Petigru Boyce and John Broadus (the latter two being two who founded Southern Seminary in Louisville, were Confederate army chaplains who went on record repeatedly saying they were fighting against a “tyrannical usurper.” Both Jackson and Lee would have stayed with the union if Lincoln had not raised 75,000 troops against his own citizens. They were against forceful coercion and would have been very open to negotiations (see Jackson’s speech to his new troops known as the Army of the Valley at the beginning of the war).
I am a son of Virginia who is adamantly against the institution of slavery in every form. Slavery was the occasion used to justify the war, but it was not the primary rationale behind it. Lincoln at first wanted to preserve the Union in whatever way possible, whether keeping slavery, abolishing slavery, or leaving things the way they were. Slavery wasn’t an issue in the North due to the increased industrialization of the North, as opposed to the continued agrarian issues in the South.
But racism in the North was still prevalent (see Horatio Seymour’s (D-NY) presidential run in 1868 against U.S. Grant, where his slogan was, “This is a White Man’s Country—Let White Men Rule”). Racism, child labor issues, and immigration issues were running rampant in the North. Even in the North after the Civil War, a miniscule amount of blacks were allowed to vote (and none in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, etc.). So slavery may not have been an issue, but racism ran rampant. There was blood on the hands of both sides.
Having said all that, I can reconcile Jackson’s faith in the gospel of Christ, while he still at that time tried to reconcile amidst all the noise of Christians and non-Christians alike trying to understand what the Bible said on the matter. We all need growth, and if Jackson had not died by friendly fire during the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 10, 1863, he may have grown in his faith to such a degree that he would have seen the evils of it and been a Confederate abolitionist.
Thanks for the forum, Tim. Good discussion.
Slavery wasn’t an issue in the North due to the increased industrialization of the North, as opposed to the continued agrarian issues in the South.
One interesting component to slavery in the South was that it was bad for the white population as well. Now obviously it wasn’t as bad, so no one accuse me of drawing some kind of moral equivalency here. But an economy based on free market economics will always eventually outpace one based on slavery. By enslaving an entire race to do their work, Southerners were hurting their own self-interests.
One interesting thing you find is that in the South the work ethic tended to be one that disliked hard work. Hard work was slave work and, therefore, bad work. But in the North the hard work was done by a much wider segment of the population. Therefore, hard work was regarded as everyone’s lot, not just the realm of slaves. This is why farms in the North tended to be far more productive than farms in the South.
One brief point about slavery and the North. Of all that cotton grown down South, a vast amount of it went straight to New York and from there to mills or overseas. Many Northerners were only too glad to benefit from the cheap cotton produced by slave labor.
Hey Jake Phillips,
Lincoln was the consummate politician and always had his eye on winning over the middle states. Even the Emancipation Proclamation did not free all slaves, just the ones in the South, not applying to KY, MO, MD, or DE. But regardless, what he did is irrelevant. The South rose up against the North. Why? Are you really going to tell me it was not about slavery, the economic driving force of the South?
And whether other men condoned slavery or not is a red herring. The other wars you refer to were not over slavery. Do not see a difference between passively condoning a dreadful thing and actively shedding another man’s blood and leading others to do so in the name of preserving it?
This is so important because Jesus and the Gospel are implicitly at stake here. Half the prophets are about how Israel is still performing their religious duties but they are oppressing people. God said that they were wicked and their religion meant nothing to him because of the oppression.
Now, if we tell people that the Gospel changes you and makes you a new creation, that it makes you work towards creating the city of God here on earth, on what basis do we commend Jackson to others? On the fact that he was polite to African Americans? On the fact that he knew his Bible?
The South justified slavery using the Bible. If we hold up men like Jackson as Christian examples, there doesn’t appear to be a lot of difference between us and those Southern “Christians.”
Unbelievers see our inconsistencies and want nothing to do with this “new city” we proclaim, because, well, heck, it looks a lot like the old city.
Regardless, I still think Tim Challies is the bomb and I will still read his blog. But I must vehemently disagree with commending Jackson as a Christian man.
Bou - Are you saying that Jackson was not a believer? If so, aren’t you making slavery the unpardonable sin?
Now, if we tell people that the Gospel changes you and makes you a new creation, that it makes you work towards creating the city of God here on earth, on what basis do we commend Jackson to others? On the fact that he was polite to African Americans? On the fact that he knew his Bible?
I totally agree. But the mystery of sanctification (and the frustration) is that it’s not instantaneous. And it is given in unequal measure. Do remember that Jackson died when he was [only] 39 and before the War ended. It’s entirely possible that he would have considered the end of slavery one of the Providential benefits of the Southern defeat.
I agree, Tim, that there are objective rights and wrongs. That wasn’t my point though. I wasn’t clear enough (i’m not a writer; preacher, theologian, blogger, etc so please do forgive my lack of eloquence and argumentative clarity)
My point is that it is easy to stand on the outside of history and throw stones such as has been done here today. We have over 150 years of seeing how this all played out and Jackson didn’t have that vantage point. The bible isn’t as black and white on this issue (pardon the pun) as modern thought and philosophy is today. I think we have it right and they had it wrong, but being born into a different world with different societal norms would impact how one read and interpreted scripture. You couldn’t just turn to the bible and be like “hey, here it is right here: you can’t have slaves.”
I don’t want to go all “guns ablazing” nailing these folks to the wall. Sometimes those black and white moral standards look closer to grey and are harder to spot when its against the backdrop of your own era’s long held beliefs. So while I agree that slavery = wrong; i don’t want to be as harsh as some of the other commenters on Jackson and his kind.
also Tim, I disagree on your assessment of “hard work” in the south versus the north.
Slavery wasn’t widespread and most southerners still did “slave work” by virtue of the fact that they didn’t own slaves to do it for them.
Tim,
Seriously, coming from you that is a huge compliment! Love your blog and style!
Under the Mercy,Mike
Sorry, one more thing. As a student of history, particularly southern history, I have oftentimes felt that there were two histories for this region: one history of the wealthy and the other of the everyday common southerner.
I suppose that’s the case everywhere, but it seems particularly troublesome when it comes to the southern US and arriving at a clear picture of life in the antebellum south.
Bou - Are you saying that Jackson was not a believer? If so, aren’t you making slavery the unpardonable sin?
No, not at all. It’s not my place to judge that. I am against commending him as a Christian example when the most defining moments of his life were leading an army to preserve the oppression of the African Americans.
Lots of men I look up to have faults. Luther was antisemitic. Calvin had a hand in burning Servetus, which I think was wrong.
But Luther and Calvin’s lives weren’t defined by egregious sin. The whole trajectory of their lives makes them worthy of being held up as examples of the Christian faith.
The argument that Jackson was defending his state (not slavery) sounds a lot like the argument that pro-choicers are defending women’s reproductive rights (not abortion). Tim, if you accept this latter argument, then i guess i understand how you can accept the former. However, we need not judge Jackson based upon our opinion as to whether or not his military endeavors ultimately supported the institution of slavery because he *personally* owned at least 6 slaves. What would you think of a professing Christian who unrepentantly performed, received or paid for 6 abortions? Would you be as generous to such a person concerning his/her profession of faith as you are to Jackson? If so, then i guess your generosity towards Jackson makes sense.
Apparently Jackson was Calvinistic/Reformed and could check all of the appropriate doctrinal boxes to your satisfaction. Wonderful! And so, you count him a brother in Christ. Perhaps you are correct. But your eagerness to accept him (and gloss over his sins) appears to be based fundamentally on his doctrinal profession, rather than his conduct. James has much to say about this in his letter to first century Christians. (Surely you must know that even the demons have a Calvinistic understanding of the gospel.) Tim, your soft words towards Jackson’s owning of other men as property is extremely disheartening. i wish that you would speak as forcefully against manstealing as the apostle Paul. Despite your argument to the contrary, how we treat the least of our brothers IS a first-order doctrine. In fact, according to Matthew 25 Jesus says it is indicative of where we will spend our eternity.
Please do not allow the fact that Jackson wears the same Reformed jersey as you to diminish the importance of “love” to true Christian discipleship. Without love, Reformed theology is just a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
Shouldn’t respond…said I wasn’t going to respond…(struggle, struggle…)…aw stink!
Tim,I agree with you! I believe Jackson was a believer. (really). I just don’t know if I can call him “Godly.” That is a different issue in my mind.
Dale,I feel like you are making my point which is…
We do have the advantage of 150 years of perspective! We can call slavery and fighting a war to preserve it—wrong. All I’m saying is that we shouldn’t praise a man who support slavery “good” even though I agree with Tim he was a believer. He was forgiven. But he was horribly blind and/or misled by his culture in my opinion.
Why do we praise Bonhoeffer, Wilberforce, Luther and the like? Because they looked at Christ and the Gospel and rose above their culture and circumstances to oppose them with the Gospel. I just don’t see Jackson doing that, therefore—to me—he is not praiseworthy. That really is the only point I’m trying to make here. We have to be careful what/who we praise.
Tim, you are correct, Southerners may have been harming their own economic self-interests. But i think you fail to appreciate just how much self-interest Southerners had vested in the idea of white-supremacy. This was a very strong motivator. Even more than the almighty dollar. In addition, during the ante-bellum years, Christians did not yet believe that the free-market was *the* Christian political economy. It would take another 130 years before this revelation.
Mike, I sort of agree with you but i feel like cutting people slack on things that are not spelled out in black and white in the bible. We are all so blind as human beings that cultural norms absolutely affect how we interpret things.
Sorry, can’t let this stuff go.
You guys who are nailing jackson over slavery, are you doing that with other sins or just this one?
What about Luther with the Jews? Is he not saved now?
Jonathan Edwards, as i brought up earlier, owned slaves…what about him?
If we start this “sin checklist” stuff like we do in modern America with certain sins, we are going to be left with not a lot of heros of the faith that are worthy of reading and studying.
It just seems so cynical and arrogant to me. I’m not saying not to call people on their obvious sins or to gloss over those, but this “we can’t praise this guy because of his supposed stance on slavery” is a slippery slope and I don’t think you can treat history that way.