Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #88282 in Books
• Published on: 1997-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 950 pages

Amazon.com
A distinguished Civil War historian unravels the complex character of the Confederacy's greatest general. Drawing on previously untapped manuscript sources, the author refutes such long-standing myths as Stonewall Jackson's obsessive eating of lemons and gives a three-dimensional account of the profound religious faith frequently caricatured as grim Calvinism. Though the author capably covers the battles that made Jackson a legend--Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, etc.--he emphasizes "the life story of an extraordinary man." The result is a biography that will fascinate even those allergic to military history.

From Library Journal
Robertson (Jackson & Lee, Rutledge Hill, 1995) has put together an exhaustive account of the life of Stonewall Jackson from his early years as an orphan until his death after being accidentally shot by his own troops. Robertson describes Jackson as "a man of arms surrounded by the tenets of faith," and so he was. He was a devout, reticent man who surrendered himself to the will of God. Even the deaths of his first wife and his children and his own agonizingly slow death didn't shake his faith. Yet he was also a great military strategist and stern disciplinarian who inspired great loyalty in his troops. Lee considered him his best general and was shaken by his death. Extensively researched and well written, this compares well with Byron Farwell's masterly Stonewall: A Biography (LJ 9/1/92). Recommended for Civil War and American history collections.?Judy R. Reis, Cochise Cty. Lib. Dist., Bisbee, Ariz.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The New York Times Book Review, Stephen W. Sears
. . . [T]wo dozen writers have attempted biographies, and there are any number of special studies, monographs and essays. Now going straight to the head of the class of Jackson biographers, and likely to remain there, is James I. Robertson Jr. . . . Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend gives us far and away the sharpest picture we have ever had of this enigmatic figure.