The Stonewall Brigade

Here, seen through the eyes of the men themselves, is the story of the Confederacy’s legendary Stonewall Brigade. Most Civil War accounts treat of battles and armies. The focus of this exciting account is sharper, narrower: a single brigade, the basic unit of attack of one of those armies.

The Stonewall Brigade and its first commander, Thomas J. Jackson, won their nickname at the bloody baptism of First Manassas. Over the next four years "Jackson’s foot cavalry" achieved fame and sustained losses matched by few American military units before or since. There were some 2,600 men serving in the brigade at the start of the war. At Appomattox-thirty-nine engagements later-only 210 remained, none above the rank of captain. But these men from out of the Valley of Virginia had written their names upon the pages of history.

In The Stonewall Brigade the author, a distinguished scholar of the Civil War, has given equal billing with the immortal Jackson to such soldiers as Lieutenant David Barton, Captain Kyd Douglas, and Private John Casler. He has attempted to capture the camp life, the marches, the personal experiences in battle rather than concentrate on well-known strategy and familiar Confederate leaders. Similarly, descriptions of battles are written from within the ranks rather than from command posts. The result is a vivid and often moving account of courage and cowardice, triumph and heartbreak-and endurance perhaps without parallel.