A Union State's Confederate Hero: Stonewall Jackson and the Lost Cause in West Virginia

In September 1911, a jubilant crowd gathered inside the Harrison County Courthouse at Clarksburg, West Virginia, to dedicate a new monument noting the birthplace of Confederate general Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. The event was sponsored by the Stonewall Jackson Chapter No. 1333 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), which had raised money through the sale of Stonewall Jackson commemorative calendars. The dedication ceremony was quite elaborate considering that the monument was a simple, unadorned bronze plaque mounted onto the front of a nondescript commercial building. The pageantry was fraught with elements of Confederate symbolism. The courtroom was decorated with Confederate and American flags. James Powers Smith, the last surviving member of Jackson's staff, served as the principal speaker. A procession of sixteen Confederate veterans marched to a place of honor at the front of the room, where they were later awarded the Southern Cross of Honor by the UDC. An orchestra played "Dixie" and other Southern tunes. Speeches from Congressman John W. Davis, State Delegate James W. Robinson, and County Judge Haymond Maxwell gave an air of government endorsement. Maxwell opened with a speech defending the Confederacy's role in the Civil War—which he described as "a misunderstanding between brothers"—by arguing that the Southern states had the right to secede from the Union.¹ A young child, Gilmer Weston Jr., was selected to unveil the plaque outside, a visual metaphor of the multigenerational impact the monument was intended to make. The festivities concluded that evening with a reception hosted by the UDC at the Hotel Waldo.²

Despite the overt ideological bent of the occasion, the speakers made some overtures to non-Confederate sympathizers. They downplayed Jackson's role serving the Confederacy in the Civil War and stressed that his character took precedent over his allegiances. Judge Maxwell declared that they were honoring Jackson "not because of his Confederacy [sic], but because of his superb manliness."³ Delegate Robinson spoke of Jackson's West Virginia identity and how his appeal should extend to all state residents rather than just to Confederate sympathizers. He claimed that the residents of Jackson's hometown, "regardless of sectional sympathies, are proud that Clarksburg gave to the war between the states its greatest soldier and military genius."⁴ Robinson further added that "West Virginians admire General Jackson because of the unselfish devotion which he had for the people of his state."⁵ He failed to mention that, for Jackson, his state was Virginia.

West Virginia has had a complicated relationship with its Confederate native son. Born in Clarksburg, in 1824, Thomas Jackson grew up on the family farm in nearby Lewis County and—although he left at the age of eighteen—always considered what was then northwestern Virginia to be his original home. When the Civil War arrived, Jackson found himself on the opposing side to his birthplace, now in the nascent, pro-Union state of West Virginia. While Jackson desired to reclaim this region for the Confederacy—by force, if necessary—military priorities led him elsewhere.

By the time of his death in May 1863, Jackson had become a nationally known figure, lauded by some and loathed by others. Initially after the war, there was a lack of widespread commemoration of the rebel general in West Virginia. His popularity was confined to areas where Confederate support was most prominent, such as the Eastern Panhandle. By the 1870s, Reconstruction-era proscriptions against former Confederates had been removed, and they returned to positions of social and political power.⁶ Gradually, the legacy and memory of Stonewall Jackson's life shifted toward a more positive light in the state.

The catalyst for this shift was the Lost Cause movement, which began to influence West Virginia around the turn of the twentieth century. This revisionist ideology gained traction throughout the South and in border states largely as a response to social, economic, and racial changes in the nation. Its core message insisted that the Confederacy fought a noble battle for the cause of states' rights rather than in the overt defense of slavery...