Next to Robert E. Lee himself, Thomas J. Jackson is the most revered of all Confederate commanders. A graduate of West Point, he had served in the artillery in the Mexican War, earning two brevets, before resigning to accept a professorship at the Virginia Military Institute. Thought strange by the cadets, he earned "Tom Fool Jackson" and Old Blue Light" as nicknames.
Thomas Jonathon Jackson was born on January 21st, 1824. He was orphaned at age 7 and had to move in with his uncle Cummins Jackson, at Jackson's Mill Virginia. …
