Inventing Stonewall Jackson: A Civil War Hero in History and Memory by Wallace Hettle (review)

With memory studies of the Civil War and related topics increasing steadily, few luminaries have been as noticeably absent in such work as Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. In Inventing Stonewall Jackson: A Civil War Hero in History and Memory, Wallace Hettle presents Jackson as understood by the people who knew him—and few truly did—and those who admired him. In his introduction, Hettle pronounces his intention to explore what Jackson meant to people and to analyze what those meanings tell us about the South as a whole. For the most part, this short and lively book accomplishes those goals, and Hettle offers an important new perspective on one of the Confederacy’s most mythologized figures.

The author composed Inventing Stonewall Jackson as a collection of articles with a central purpose. Each chapter is a separate case study in the creation of Jackson’s historical image. Ranging from contemporary news accounts to memoirs by Stonewall’s widow to the Southern Agrarian Allen Tate and finally to the movie Gods and Generals, Hettle demonstrates how Jackson has served the needs of multiple generations. From his survey of these sources, Hettle identifies eight central Stonewall images that reverberated through the past and into the present. To some, Jackson was a Christian warrior, an eccentric battlefield genius, and a tough disciplinarian. His wife, Mary Anna, however, worked feverishly to discredit depictions of her husband that emphasized his cruelty or characterized him as a religious fanatic. By placing Mary Anna at the center of Jackson’s image making, Hettle clarifies the origin of several important aspects of Jackson’s historical image. Mary Anna amplified Jackson’s domestic side, insisting that he was a loving husband and father as well as a kindly slaveholder. In many ways it was her version of her husband that found its way into theatres in the form of the historically uneven—some observers may say inaccurate—film Gods and Generals.

Both academic and general audiences will find something new and instructive in Hettle’s book. By bringing Mary Anna into the fold of Jackson mythologists and noting how her version of her husband—highlighted by the Jane Corbin relationship—has continued to shape the way people view Stonewall Jackson, Hettle has made a significant contribution. Each chapter contains equally close analysis. The section on Robert Dabney’s construction of Jackson as an upwardly mobile man on the make is perceptive and bridges the gap between the Old and the New South. Hettle also carefully denotes the differences between the novel Gods and Generals and the movie, showing how the latter’s efforts at historical accuracy lead to some head-scratching interpretive choices. If there is a weakness to the book, it would be the jump from Allen Tate and the Southern Agrarians of the 1920s to the modern day in the final two chapters. Here Hettle is a victim of his earlier success. By carefully showing how subsequent generations of white southerners constructed and employed Stonewall Jackson’s image and memory for various purposes, the Civil Rights generation is glaringly absent.

In all, Inventing Stonewall Jackson is an excellent and valuable contribution to the scholarship on its titular subject and southern history as a whole. Readers, regardless of their level of interest in Stonewall Jackson, will find something of note in this book.