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Stonewall: A Biography of General Thomas J. Jackson. By BYRON FARWELL. New York: W. W. Norton g, Company, 1992. xiii, 560 pp. $29.95.
THE image is electric. As the confusion of battle swirls about him, a figure sits astride his horse. Seemingly oblivious to the death around him, he determines to hold his position against whatever numbers the enemy will send to pry him from it. He has promised another general that he will give their opponents the bayonet. That general, attempting desperately to restore his own faltering command, points to the officer on the hill and shouts, "Look! There stands Jackson like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians!" Such is the stuff of legend. Such, too, is the protective myth that surrounds the subject of Byron Farwell's Stonewall.
Thomas J. Jackson rose quickly to public prominence during the Civil War. Barnard Bee's rallying cry at First Manassas helped the stoic soldier capture...