Editor’s note: As a followup to Part 1, today we commemorate the 163rd anniversary of the repose of Gen. Thomas “Stonewall Jackson. When his wife gently said to him that his life would soon be coming to an end, the 39-year-old told his tending physician, “Good. I always wanted to die on a Sunday.” Later that day, on Sunday, May 10, 1863, Jackson’s final words were uttered: “Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees.“
By Walt Garlington
II. The South: Choosing the Earthly Kingdom
The South had quite a different beginning than did Serbia, as chiefly an economic expedition. (For an emphatic statement of this fact, see Allen Tate, ‘Remarks on the Southern Religion’, I’ll Take My Stand, pgs. 166-7.) Professor M. E. Bradford in his essay ‘First Fathers: The Colonial Origins of the Southern Tradition’ reproduces Michael Drayton’s poem ‘To the Virginian Voyage’, and from it one may see clearly this motive behind the settlement of Virginia and the other regions that would become the various Southern states. Mr Drayton wrote:
And cheerfully at sea,
Success you still entice,
To get the pear and gold,
And ours to hold,
Virginia,
Earth’s only paradise.
Where nature hath in store
Fowl, venison, and fish,
And the fruitful’st soil
Without your toil
Three harvests more,
All greater than your wish.”— A Better Guide than Reason, p. 170
On runs this theme throughout without any particular mention of Christianity.
Adds Prof Bradford, ‘For from the first the South was two things: an arena for enacting and transplanting a slowly developed but well established English character and a demi-paradise, another (or almost) Eden where noble conduct would earn the noble reward of plenitude’ (p. 172).
And as the Serbs had Sts Simeon and Sava to provide their nation with a conscious direction, so too had the young South her helmsman in Captain John Smith. A practical man, he stated, ‘ . . . I am not so simple to thinke, that euer any other motive than wealth, will euer erect there a commonweale; or draw companie from their ease and humors at home . . . to effect my purposes’ (p. 175). Prof Bradford picks him up: ‘These are plain words. But to them the hearty Elizabethan adds notes pastoral and heroic: descriptions of the physical perfections of Virginia’s natural wealth and expostulations to sluggards that they use their talents, test their mettle, and “imitate the vertues” of their ancestors to earn “honorable memory” of their lives’ (p. 175).
For stimulating a desire for worldly glory and wealth in men, such words are apt; but not for making them hunger and thirst after righteousness. This is, again, very much a departure from Serbia whose motto, taken from St Sava, is ‘Give up everything for Christ, but Christ for nothing’ (Great-Martyr Tsar Lazar, p. 17). This is not to say that the early South was devoid of Christianity. It certainly was not. (See, e.g., Professor David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed, subchapter entitled ‘Virginia’s Great Migration: Religious Origins’, pgs. 232-6.) But the emphasis on money-getting and the religious conflicts of the Reformation in England, particularly Henry VIII’s fanatical policies, militated against a flourishing of Christianity in the early South, particularly among the lower classes who emigrated from England to the South. On this latter point, Maurice Henry Hewlett comments, ‘So far as may be I have satisfied myself that the English peasantry went without a working religion for two hundred years—that is, from the time when King and Parliament had obliterated Catholicism to the time of John Wesley’ (The Song of the Plow, note to Book VII, l. 304, on p. 234). That was precisely the time of emigration from England to Virginia and other areas of the South.
The upper classes were not immune from backsliding, however, and would later fall under the sway of Deism and skepticism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in addition to showing a penchant for other vices like cockfights and drunkenness (Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene Genovese, The Mind of the Master Class, p. 410).
But the nineteenth century was in general a period of remarkable growth of Christianity in the South: ‘In the 1850s and 1860s, Bishops William Meade of Virginia and Stephen Elliott of Georgia exulted in the decline of infidelity and the advance of evangelicalism. [Thomas Roderick] Dew, Meade, and Elliott claimed victory in a long, hard-fought struggle that had begun with the great religious revival at Cane Ridge in 1801’ (pgs. 409-10).
In this way the Lord God prepared the South spiritually for the coming fury which the War of Northern Aggression was to unleash upon them, just as He had prepared Serbia for the Turkish onslaught. Even in the midst of that storm the grace of God was active, as tens of thousands of Southern soldiers converted to Christianity – 140,000 in 1863 alone according to one estimate (Eugene Genovese, A Consuming Fire, 1998, p. 45). And also out of that fire did God raise up for the South her mightiest Christian hero: Lieutenant-General Thomas Jonathan ‘Stonewall’ Jackson.
In him one finds the attainment of many virtues: e.g., ‘conscientiousness’ (Reverend Robert Lewis Dabney, Life and Campaigns, p. 87) and humble obedience to legitimate authority, whether ecclesiastical, military, etc. because of his great reverence for God and the harmonious order He created (pgs. 87-8). He purified his mind and heart of sinfulness, which allowed him to make wise judgments in the heat of battle and elsewhere (p. 102).
At home he was a devoted and affectionate husband and father, ‘intensely fond of his home’ and the rural farming life. He daily led the morning prayers with his family and slaves and then attended to a private reading of the Holy Bible. In the evening he enjoyed listening as a family member read to him from ‘the classic historians and poets of the English tongue’ (pgs. 117-20, quotes on p. 117 and pgs. 119-20, respectively).
Despite his military aptitude and success, ‘the calling which he most coveted for himself’ was ‘the honor of winning souls’ (p. 113), and it mattered not whether they were ‘his friends and relatives’ (p. 92), the slaves of his village (p. 93), or Confederate soldiers (pgs. 583-6). As the General himself exclaimed in a letter on the work of the Rev. Dr. S— in his corps, ‘Oh, it is a glorious privilege to be a minister of the gospel of the Prince of Peace! There is no equal position in this world’ (pgs. 585-6; quote on p. 586). Such expressions help us to understand his tireless efforts to reform and strengthen the chaplain corps and to present the soldiers of the Confederacy with every opportunity to hear preaching, read the Holy Scriptures, sing hymns, pray, and so forth (pgs. 640-57).
He was completely humble and selfless (p. 113); grateful to God for the beauty of His creation (p. 121); devoted to unceasing prayer (p. 106); ever credited God for his victories in battle (e.g., pgs. 384-5); and sought a closer union of the disestablished Confederate government with the Christian churches (p. 644).
Much more could be said of General Jackson, but for present purposes this will suffice to end the recounting of his qualities: ‘On every intelligent Christian who approached him at this time [1863, prior to the Battle of Chancellorsville – W.G.], he made the impression of eminent sanctity. They all left him with this testimony: that he was the holiest man they had ever seen’ (p. 655).
As Confederate forces faced loss after loss in early 1862, this great leader buoyed their hopes and that of the whole country as he went from victory to victory (pgs. 298, 429). But the trial of Chancellorsville still remained before him and the South. The Northern Army under General McClellan gathered 125,000 men against General Lee’s 45,000. McClellan’s army was furthermore equipped with all manner of heavy munitions and guarded by earthworks about the Chancellor farm.
Generals Lee and Jackson confronted this challenge in a most unusual manner: Gen Jackson would take his corps (about two-thirds of the whole force present) and attack the Northern Army from the rear in the north and west. After beginning thusly, Gen Lee and the remainder of the Southern Army would then join the attack. What would normally have been risky proved the opposite under Gen Jackson, who knew the mind and character of his enemy well. He swept along the backroads to the rear of the McClellan’s right wing and on 2 May 1863 proceeded to utterly rout his opponent’s surprised army in that vicinity. But in the disorder in the Confederate ranks that followed this tremendous victory, and amid a renewed assault by the enemy, he received from friendly fire the mortal wound in his left arm from which he would die peacefully on 10 May 1863, his beloved Sabbath Day, on which he had expressed a desire on past occasions to depart from this life (pgs. 657, 664-86, 722).
What is the meaning of the brilliant and grace-filled life and the untimely death of Gen Jackson? What befell the South at Chancellorsville that was beyond human sight? We must allow Rev Dabney to be heard once more, and at some length (‘Stonewall Jackson’, Discussions, Vol. 4: Secular, pgs. 171-5):
Jackson prayed for the independence of his country; or, if that might not be, he desired not to survive its overthrow. God could not grant the former, for reasons to be seen anon, wherefore he granted the latter. The man died at the right time. He served the purpose of the Divine Wisdom in his generation. He went upward and onward upon the flood-tide of his fame and greatness, until it reached its very acme; and thence he went up to his rest. After that came the ebb-tide, the stranding, and the wreck. This, surely, is a singular mark of Heaven’s favor, lifting him almost to the rank of that antediluvian hero “who walked with God, and he was not; for God took him.” When his fame and success were at their zenith, never yet blighted by disaster; when the cause he loved better than life was most hopeful; when he had just performed his most brilliant exploit [Chancellorsville – W.G.], and could leave his country all jubilant with his praise, and glowing with gratitude for his deliverance; before the coming woe had projected upon his spirit even the fringe of that shadow which would have been to him colder than death—that was the time for Jackson to be translated.
The other thing, which alone would have been better—to lead his country on from triumph to triumph to final deliverance—to hang up his sword in the sanctuary, and to sit down a freeman amidst the people he had saved— that we would not permit God to effect; and that we were not fit to have such deliverance wrought for us, even by a Jackson, this God would demonstrate before he took him away; for the true great man is a gift from heaven, informed with a portion of its own life and fire. Some small critics have argued that great men are born in their times; that they are mere impersonations of the moral forces common to their contemporaries. This, be assured, may be true of that species of little great men, of whom Shakespeare writes, that “they have greatness thrust on them.” The true hero is not made by his times, but makes them, if indeed material of greatness be in them. They wait for him, in sore need, perhaps, of his kindling touch, groping in perilous darkness towards destruction, for want of his true light: they produce him not. God sends him. There be three missions for such a true great man among men. If “the iniquity of the Amorites is already full,” the Great Power, the wicked great man, Caesar or Napoleon, is sent among them to seduce them to their ruin. If they be worthy of greatness, and have in them any true substance to be kindled by the heroic fire, the good hero, your Moses or Washington, shall be sent unto them for deliverance. If it be not yet manifest to men whether the times be the one or the other, Amoritish, utterly reprobate, and fit only for anarchy or slavery, or else with seed of nobleness in them, and capable of true glory (though to Him who commissions the hero there be no mystery nor contingency which is not manifest), then will he send one, or peradventure several, who shall be touchstones to that people, to “try them so as by fire,” whether there be worth in them or no. And then shall this God-sent man show forth an exemplar to his people, which shall be unto them a test, whether they, having eyes, see, or see not the true glory and right, and whether they have hearts to understand and love it. And then shall he bring nigh deliverances unto them, full of promise and hope, yet mutable, which are God’s overtures saying unto them: “Come now and let us reason together. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” Will ye, or will ye not? Thus was Jackson God’s interrogatory to this people, saying to them: “Will ye be like him, and be saved? Lo, there! What would a nation of Jacksons be? That may ye be! How righteousness exalteth a people! Shall this judgment and righteousness ‘be the stability of thy times, O Confederate, and strength of thy salvation?’ ” And these mighty deliverances at Manassas, Winchester, Port Republic, Chickahominy, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, were they not manifest overtures to us to have the God of Jackson and Lee for our God, and be saved? “Here is the path; walk ye in it.”
And what said our people? Many honestly answered, “Yea, Lord, we will”; of whom the larger part walked whither Jackson did, and now lie with him in glory. But another part answered, “Nay,” and they live, on such terms as we see, even such as they elected. To them, also, it was plain that Jackson’s truth and justice and devotion to duty were the things that made him great and unconquerable. Even the wicked avouched this. Therefore a nation of such like men must needs be unconquerable and free. But they would not be free on such terms. Nay; they preferred rather to walk after their own vanities. Verily they have their reward! Let the contrast appear in two points. Jackson writes thus to his wife:
“You had better not sell your coupons from the” (Confederate) “bonds, as I understand they are paid in gold; but let the Confederacy keep the gold. Citizens should not receive a cent of gold from the government when it is so scarce.”
Set over against this the spectacle of almost the many, except the soldiers, gone mad at the enhancement of prices with speculation and extortion, greedy to rake together paper money, mere rags and trash, while such as Jackson were pouring out money and blood in the death grapple for them. Take another: He writes to his wife, Christmas, 1862, in answer to the inquiry whether he could not visit her, and see the child upon which he had never looked, while the army was in winterquarters:
“It appears to me that it is better for me to remain with my command so long as the war continues, if our ever-gracious Heavenly Father permits. The army suffers immensely by absentees. If all our troops, officers and men, were at their posts, we might, through God’s blessing, expect a more speedy termination of the war. The temporal affairs of some are so deranged as to make a strong plea for their returning home for a short time; but our God has greatly blessed me and mine during my absence; and whilst it would be a great comfort to see you, and my darling little daughter, and others in whom I take special interest, yet duty appears to require me to remain with mycommand. It is most important that those at headquarters set an example by remaining at the post of duty.”
Look now from this picture of steadfastness in duty to the multitudes of absentees and of stalwart young men shirking the army by every slippery expedient. So these answered back to God’s overture: “Mammon is dearer than manhood, and inglorious ease than liberty.” The disclosure was now made that this people could not righteously be free, was not fit for it, and that God was just. Jackson could now go home to his rest. He in the haven, the ebb-tide might begin; he safely housed, the storm of adversity might burst [emphasis mine – W.G.].
The thing to be most painfully pondered then, by this people, is: Whether the fate of Jackson, and such like, is not proof that we have been weighed in the balances and found wanting? How readeth the handwriting on the wall? Not hopefully, in verity of truth, if Truth, which heroes worship, be indeed eternal, and be destined to assert herself ever. Jackson, alas, lies low, under the little hillock in Lexington graveyard, and Lee frets out his great heart-strings at this worldwide vision of falsehood and vile lucre, cruel as sordid, triumphant, unwhipped of justice; while the men who ride prosperously are they who sell themselves to work iniquity, and who say “Evil, be thou my good.” Yea, these are the men whom the people delighteth to honor; to whom the churches and ministers of God in this land bow down, proclaiming: “Verily success is divine; and Might it maketh right; and the Power of this world, it shall be God unto us.” And while the grave of heroic Truth and virtue has no other memento than the humble stone placed there by a feeble woman’s hand, pompous monuments of successful wrong affront the skies with their altitude, “calling evil good and good evil, and putting darkness for light and light for darkness.” We fear that when Truth shall re-assert herself it will go ill with this generation.
Truly the South had grown in grace from her early days, but something unregenerate remained, sins unrepented of. Richard Weaver muses, ‘Somewhere there was a tragic fault—a fault compounded of pride, exclusiveness, and self-absorption (The Southern Tradition at Bay, p. 258). Others during the War warned that sinfulness would bring about the downfall of the Confederacy. ‘[I]mpiety, selfishness, corruption, and profiteering’ and other such vices were ‘railed against’ by many leaders, secular and churchly (A Consuming Fire, p. 47). Slaveholders were enjoined to treat the men and women entrusted to their care in accordance with Biblical commands and warned of the dire consequences for disobedience (pgs. 51-61).
The Southern people, however, as Rev Dabney revealed, had made their decision: They chose the Kingdom of Earth rather than the Kingdom of Heaven, and at the Battle of Chancellorsville the Lord sealed that decision by withdrawing his servant Gen Jackson from the War and shortly afterwards from this world. The South was absorbed by the Northern nation, just as many a smaller nation of that century was violently and forcibly joined to a larger in Europe and elsewhere as a prelude to the one world government of the Antichrist (Southern Tradition at Bay, p. 258; Life and Campaigns, pgs. 159-60; Father Andrew Phillips, e-mail to author).
Feature image: The Wounding of Stonewall Jackson at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Walt Garlington is a chemical engineer turned writer and editor of the website Confiteri: A Southern Perspective. This longtime Southern Baptist, then Anglican, was united to the Orthodox Church in 2012 and makes his home in Louisiana where he attends a GOA parish.
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