|
CLASS OF 1841
|
Jackson went directly from West Point into the Mexican War. The young artillerist twice won commendation for courage in battle,
rising to the temporary rank of major. Unhappy in the peacetime army, he resigned in 1851 to become a professor at the Virginia
Military Institute.
Austere and devout, Jackson disdained gambling, drinking, and smoking. He married twice, both times a Presbyterian
minister’s daughter. Elinor Junkin, his first wife, married him in 1853 but died little more than a year later. He wed Mary
Anne Morrison in 1857, and the couple had a daughter, Julia.
Jackson’s short Civil War career began with the brilliant Shenandoah Valley campaign 1862, and he achieved almost mythic
proportions as Robert E. Lee’s great partner. It ended with an accidental shooting by his own troops at the Battle of
Chancellorville in May 1863.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
