Memorializing Jackson's Death

When General "Stonewall" Jackson died eight days after being wounded in these woods, shock waves rippled through the South. Confederates immediately memorialized him in words. Senator John Warwick Daniel said, "Of his soldiers he was the idol; of his country he was the hope; of war he was the master." One artilleryman wrote, "A greater sense of loss and deeper grief never followed the death of mortal man," and Robert E. Lee confessed, "I know not how to replace him." After the war local residents erected a small boulder about 60 yards from the site to commemorate the general's wounding. In 1888, 5,000 people attended the dedication of a more formal monument there.

Lake Wilderness, Virginia · United States