Book summary “Rebel Yell”: summary

Introduction

You want to understand how a seemingly awkward, intensely religious professor transformed into one of the most feared military commanders in American history. S. C. Gwynne explores the life and command of Thomas Jonathan Stonewall Jackson, tracing his path from an orphaned childhood in Virginia to his legendary status during the Civil War.

Thomas Jonathan Stonewall Jackson emerged from an orphaned and obscure background to become a ruthless, deeply religious military genius whose aggressive tactics nearly preserved the Confederacy.

The book details Jackson's rise through the Shenandoah Valley campaign, his crucial partnership with Robert E. Lee, and his fatal wounding at Chancellorsville.

You will discover the answers to these questions as you read:

• How did Jackson overcome severe childhood trauma to forge an unshakeable will?
• What made his tactical movements in the Shenandoah Valley so devastating to Union forces?
• How did his strict religious fatalism influence his fearlessness in battle?

1. Early Life and Beliefs

Thomas J. Jackson overcame severe childhood trauma and early professional failures by developing an uncompromising moral code and a belief in divine fatalism.

Orphaned Beginnings

You trace Jackson's unyielding character back to profound early disruptions. Born in Clarksburg, Virginia, in 1824, he lost his father and six-year-old sister to typhoid fever in 1826. His destitute mother remarried a harsh lawyer before she passed away in 1831, leaving young Tom and his sister Laura orphaned.

When an uncle and slave arrived to fetch Tom and Laura to Jackson's Mill, seven-year-old Tom hid in the woods to beg not to be sent away.

The VMI Professor

Despite being an exceptional math and science student, Jackson proved to be an unsuccessful and ineffective college professor. As a professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy at VMI, he lacked pedagogical tact and simply repeated exact textual definitions when students failed to understand.

When an alumni committee formally resolved in 1856 that Jackson lacked the capacity for his professorship, the board tabled the resolution, and Jackson continued his work unchanged.

You find his social eccentricities rooted in an uncompromising personal code. He strictly followed aphorisms from George Winifred Hervey's The Principles of Courtesy:

• Endeavor to be at peace with all men and never speak disrespectfully of anyone without a cause.
• Never try to appear more wise or learned than the rest of the company.
• Use no hurtful deceit: think innocently and justly, and if you speak, speak accordingly.
• If you speak in company, speak late.
• Avoid triumphing over an antagonist.
• Say as little of yourself and friends as possible.

Jackson practiced a habit of continuous prayer, linking every mundane daily action directly to a thought of God:

• Lift your heart to God in thanks and prayer whenever you raise a glass of water to your lips.
• Send a petition for blessing whenever you drop a letter in the post office.
• Stop to ask God to prepare you for contents when breaking the seal of a received letter.
• Intercede with God for students while waiting for them to arrange themselves in their classroom places.

Jackson strongly opposed secession and viewed war as the sum of all evils, attempting to organize a national day of prayer to avert it. He visited his pastor, the Reverend Dr. William S. White, in February 1861 to discuss organizing a nationwide prayer movement to avert the impending war.

2. Road to Secession and Command

The escalating national crisis over slavery and John Brown's raid led Virginia to secede, thrusting Jackson from academia into military mobilization.

The Crisis of Secession

John Brown seized the Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry on October 16, 1859, aiming to start a guerrilla war to free Virginia's slaves, and was later executed on December 2. The raid involved 21 followers who accompanied John Brown. 86 US marines under Colonel Robert E. Lee stormed Brown's stronghold. At the time of the raid, there were 491,000 slaves in Virginia.

Although initially viewed as the act of a madman, Brown's eloquent courtroom defense and the sympathetic Northern reaction convinced Southerners that the North supported violent abolitionist insurrections against them. You watched as this event drastically altered Southern perceptions and advanced the cause of disunion.

On April 15, 1861, Abraham Lincoln called on non-seceded states to provide 75,000 troops, leading Virginia Governor John Letcher to refuse the demand and the state to vote for secession on April 17. Virginia's troop quota was 2,340. The state convention voted 88 to 55 to secede from the Union.

Virginians who had previously opposed secession viewed Lincoln's requisition of troops to coerce Southern states as an act of unwarranted aggression.

Taking Command at Harpers Ferry

Intervention by his childhood friend Jonathan Bennett led Governor John Letcher to give Jackson a colonelcy of volunteers, valuing his local knowledge and West Point background for operations in northwestern Virginia. There were 300 West Point graduates who were in the South at the beginning of 1861.

Major General Robert E. Lee issued orders directing Jackson to proceed without delay to Harpers Ferry and assume command of the post.

When Jackson arrived at Harpers Ferry, approximately 2,500 recruits had gathered without medical facilities, commissaries, quartermasters, or adequate equipment, presided over by colorful militia generals who treated their commands as social gatherings. Major General Kenton Harper, who was 60 years old and served as the mayor and newspaper editor of Staunton, Virginia, presided over the unorganized militia before Jackson took command.

3. Forging the Stonewall Brigade

Jackson transformed undisciplined volunteers into a formidable military unit through relentless drilling, strict discipline, and exceptional logistical mastery.

Jackson rapidly replaced militia independence with strict discipline, rigorous drilling, and systematic organization, transforming a green mob into a functioning military unit. You can see how Jackson stripped independent militia companies of their autonomy, removed alcohol, and established seventeen-hour daily instructional programs. Zero tolerance for insubordination characterized his command.

On May 2, Jackson ordered his troops to sleep on their weapons and scheduled a full inspection for 1:30 a.m. to enforce discipline.

You must follow these rules when drilling troops:

• Begin instruction and drill programs at 5:00 a.m. and continue for seventeen hours.
• Include up to seven hours of marching daily in the training schedule.
• Teach troops how to move from a marching column into a battle line and back.
• Instruct soldiers on the nine separate actions required to fire a musket.
• Provide instruction on military protocol, camp making, and ration handling.

Jackson proved exceptionally competent in logistics, rapidly improvising solutions to supply shortages and moving critical manufacturing equipment despite civilian protests. Faced with equipment and transport shortages, Jackson seized commercial rolling stock and converted commercial wagons into caissons using local blacksmiths and carpenters. He impressed horses from Loudon County and commandeered locomotives from the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

Jackson informed Robert E. Lee that two-thirds of the rifled-musket fabricating machinery from the former Federal armory had been dismantled and moved to Richmond within a single week.

Discipline and Organization

You will find that Jackson's command grew steadily as he organized his forces. By May 11, his command reached 4,500 soldiers. By May 21, the total size reached 8,000 men, with 7,000 armed.

Jackson's brigade executed one of the earliest large-scale troop movements to a battlefield by railway in history, successfully linking up with Beauregard to alter the outcome at Manassas. After receiving word that Beauregard was under attack, Jackson's men marched out of Winchester following an inspiring communiqué. They waded the Shenandoah River and boarded a single-locomotive train at Piedmont Station for a slow, eight-hour transit to Manassas Junction.

John Casler and other members of Jackson's brigade recalled the march and train ride as a picnic featuring lemonade and chatting with local ladies before heading into battle.

First Manassas and the Stone Wall

During the march out of Winchester, Jackson commanded 2,600 men. The distance from Paris to Piedmont Station measured 6 miles, while the train trip to Manassas Junction spanned 34 miles.

General Barnard Bee coined the legendary epithet for Jackson while rallying his retreating troops on the battlefield. While attempting to rally the exhausted 4th Alabama regiment, Barnard Bee pointed toward the pine woods on Henry Hill where Jackson's brigade stood firm. He told his men that Jackson was standing like a stone wall, urging them to go to his assistance.

Barnard Bee shouted to his men, "Yonder stands Jackson like a stone wall," moments before he was mortally wounded during the thick of the fighting at Manassas.

Bee found 100 men of the 4th Alabama located 500 yards behind the main fire where the men were resting.

The distinct and terrifying battle cry used by Confederate troops during charges originated at Manassas and caused intense psychological dread among Union soldiers. When ordered to charge, Jackson's Virginians unleashed a peculiar, piercing noise made by a sequence of three sounds consisting of a short high-pitched yelp, a lower-pitched bark, and a long high-pitched yelp. This feral ululation became known as the rebel yell and terrified Union soldiers.

Jackson's men screamed like Furies as they swept out of the woods toward the enemy, creating a corkscrew sensation down the spines of Federal troops.

You must remember the specific distance of 50 yards at which Jackson instructed his men to reserve their fire before charging.

4. The Valley Campaign

Jackson executed a brilliant, lightning-fast campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, using speed and interior lines to defeat superior Union forces sequentially.

Foot Cavalry Tactics

A civilian observation of Union troops moving east altered Confederate strategy and triggered Jackson's aggressive Valley Campaign. When Union general Banks was ordered to send divisions toward Washington to support McClellan's peninsula campaign, local resident Jonah Tavener spotted blue-clad troops marching eastward through Snicker's Gap. Reporting this to Turner Ashby and Jackson, the intelligence revealed that the valley was being abandoned, prompting Jackson to launch a rapid forced march back north.

Elderly former militia officer Jonah Tavener traveled on horseback through Snicker's Gap on March 21, 1862, and spotted 2,000 to 3,000 Union troops moving eastward.

Jackson covered thirty-seven miles in less than thirty hours and quickly perceived that Sandy Ridge was higher than Pritchard's Hill, allowing him to place artillery above the Union lines. Jackson drove his men thirty-seven miles in less than thirty hours, losing several hundred to straggling. Upon arriving near Winchester on March 23, 1862, he used Ashby's cavalry as a screen, masked his movements, and realized that Sandy Ridge offered superior artillery positioning overlooking Pritchard's Hill.

Kernstown to Port Republic

Despite being a tactical defeat, Jackson's attack at Kernstown became a major strategic victory by panicking the Union leadership and disrupting their campaign plans against Richmond. The ferocity of Jackson's resistance and exaggerated reports of Confederate numbers convinced President Lincoln, Secretary of War Stanton, and General McClellan that Jackson posed a severe threat to Washington, causing them to divert massive forces to the Shenandoah Valley and cancel pincer movements against Richmond.

James Shields reported to the War Department that he had fought eleven thousand troops, prompting McClellan to cancel orders for Nathaniel Banks's divisions to leave the valley and instead send 19,000 men in pursuit of Jackson.

Jackson and Ewell circumvented Union defenses by marching secretly down the Luray Valley behind the Massanutten Mountain to strike Banks's flank at Front Royal. By coordinating their forces despite conflicting orders from Richmond, Jackson and Ewell used geographic screens and extreme speed to mask their approach and isolate Union garrisons.

Ewell rode fifty miles overnight to meet Jackson at an old clapboard mill near Harrisonburg to secretly coordinate the flanking strategy against Banks.

At the Battle of Port Republic, Jackson launched an aggressive attack against superior forces, ultimately routing the enemy after brutal close-quarters combat. Despite attacking prematurely with a fraction of his forces due to impatience, Jackson reinforced his line and directed Taylor's Louisianans to capture the deadly federal artillery position known as the Coaling, breaking the enemy line.

Taylor's Louisianans engaged in savage hand-to-hand combat, using bayonets and clubbed muskets to repeatedly seize and hold the Federal batteries on the Coaling.

5. The Seven Days and Second Manassas

Jefferson Davis appointed Robert E. Lee to command the Army of Northern Virginia on June 1 at 1:30 p.m. Following the wounding of Joseph E. Johnston at Seven Pines, Lee took over an unsustainable position where he was heavily outnumbered by McClellan. To counter this threat, Lee immediately summoned Jackson from the valley and orchestrated a bold plan to attack the vulnerable Union right flank. Jackson left Fredericks Hall on horseback for Lee's headquarters on June 23, riding 52 miles in fourteen hours to meet Lee.

Partnered with Robert E. Lee, Jackson played a central role in lifting the siege of Richmond and crushing Union forces at Second Manassas.

Defending Richmond

Extreme physical exhaustion and poor topographical information severely hampered Jackson's execution of complex flanking maneuvers. Jackson's march was heavily delayed by severe weather, washed-out bridges, terrible maps, bogged-down supply wagons, and his own refusal to share operational information with his staff. Jackson's troops were forced to stop six miles short of their destination after covering twenty-five miles in suffocating heat and rain.

Lee sent two thousand cavalry with Jeb Stuart to cover Jackson's left. Jackson had only seven hours of sleep in the preceding four days and had ridden ninety miles without rest.

The Flank March at Manassas

Jackson executed a legendary forced march by stripping his corps of all baggage and imposing strict non-stop marching rules. The twenty-four-thousand-man corps carried no supply train and left behind all knapsacks and bedrolls, relying solely on haversacks with three days of cooked rations and trailing a herd of cattle. Jackson eliminated traditional rest breaks and maintained total secrecy regarding the destination.

Division chiefs received no forward orders other than instructions to proceed to a crossroad and find a staff officer or courier with a sealed direction pointing to the next fork. You must follow these principles for this style of movement:

• Maintain constant movement without standard ten-minute breaks after fifty minutes of marching.
• Forbid stragglers, the removal of clothing, or the removal of shoes when crossing streams.
• Keep noise to a strict minimum and maintain absolute secrecy about the route.

Jackson's foot cavalry covered twenty-six miles in a single day with full ordnance and artillery. They carried three days' worth of cooked rations in haversacks.

Finding warehouses and boxcars filled with industrial and agricultural products, the ragged troops engaged in a wild celebration involving fine food, clothing, and luxuries. Runaway slaves' shanties were broken into, causing some half-starved soldiers to wear colored women's wardrobes and hats while eating lobster salad and drinking Rhine wine. You must enforce strict rules during such supply captures:

• Place all medicines and medical supplies under strict guard immediately upon capture.
• Order all captured whiskey dumped onto the ground to prevent intoxication.

The captured bounty included 50,000 pounds of bacon, 1,000 barrels of corned beef, 2,000 barrels of salt pork, and 2,000 barrels of flour.

Rather than escaping to safety, Jackson positioned his corps in a hidden defensive excavation near Groveton to prepare for a decisive battle against Pope. Jackson's men packed tightly into the woods in front of the railroad excavation under strict silence orders, sounding like the hum of a beehive. You must forbid all cooking, music, and shouting to maintain complete tactical surprise. A total of 24,000 men packed into the woods near the railroad excavation.

Stonewall Jackson utilized an unfinished railroad embankment as a linear fortification to successfully repel successive Union assaults. Franz Sigel, Joe Hooker, and Kearny successively hurled Union divisions against Jackson's line, resulting in brutal close-range combat where muzzles touched. Jackson placed 24,000 men behind the railroad spur, and Franz Sigel engaged 9,000 men in the first phase.

James Longstreet's arrival and subsequent massed flank attack shattered the Union left wing and decided the battle. Longstreet and Lee formed a three-mile-long L-shaped formation, and Longstreet's troops crushed the Union left after Porter's frontal assault failed. Longstreet moved 30,000 men in his approaching column, with 25,000 braves moved in line for the decisive charge.

6. Antietam and Chancellorsville

After fighting a bloody stalemate at Antietam, Jackson achieved his greatest tactical masterpiece at Chancellorsville before falling to friendly fire.

The Bloodiest Day at Antietam

Union general Joe Hooker launched an assault across a half-mile front against Jackson's positions near the Dunker church. The fierce crossfire between infantry, artillery, and canister shot leveled the cornstalks completely and caused casualty rates of up to 80 percent in participating regiments like the 1st Texas.

Union commander Joe Hooker described how every stalk of corn in the northern field was cut as closely as with a knife and the slain lay in exact rows.

A. P. Hill's Light Division arrived from Harpers Ferry just in time to rescue Lee's right flank from a decisive breakthrough by Burnside's corps. After a grueling forced march of seventeen miles in eight hours, Hill's men arrived wearing their trademark red shirts, slammed into Burnside's flank at 4:30 p.m., and rolled it back to the bridgehead, saving the Confederate army from total destruction at the end of the day.

The Fatal Flank March

Hooker dispatched three army corps on a secret thirty-mile march around the Confederate left flank, crossing rivers and establishing a strong camp at Chancellorsville to force Lee out of his entrenchments. Forty thousand men, nine batteries, and trains marched around Lee's flank and camped at a crossroads called Chancellorsville by April 30.

Stonewall Jackson executed a massive and secret flank march around the Union army, striking the right wing completely by surprise. Leaving Robert E. Lee with a tiny force of 15,000 men to face the bulk of Hooker's army, Jackson led nearly 33,000 men on a twelve-mile march across dense wooded paths. Guided by local maps and Charles Wellford, the Confederate column remained entirely undetected until it formed a two-mile battle line perpendicular to the unsuspecting Union 11th Corps.

Jackson's troops suddenly burst from the Wilderness into the camps of O. O. Howard's 11th Corps, where Union soldiers were resting, cooking, and playing cards, completely routing them.

Stonewall Jackson was mistakenly shot and mortally wounded by his own men due to poor communication during nighttime reconnaissance.

After halting an evening attack, Jackson rode forward beyond his skirmish line with a group of riders to scout Union defenses. Upon returning in the dark, the 18th North Carolina infantry mistook the mounted group for Union cavalry and fired two volleys into them, hitting Jackson with three bullets.

A. P. Hill escaped harm by lying flat on the ground, but Jackson's chief engineer Keith Boswell was shot twice through the heart and killed instantly.

Surgeon Hunter McGuire amputated Jackson's left arm just below the shoulder after determining the bone was completely shattered. While recovering at a private home near Guiney's Station, Jackson developed sharp chest pains and breathing difficulties diagnosed as pneumonia, which ultimately proved fatal.

Doctor Hunter McGuire performed the arm amputation at the Wilderness Tavern field hospital after administering chloroform to anesthetize the patient.

As his health rapidly deteriorated on Sunday, May 10, 1863, Jackson experienced bouts of delirium where he issued military orders. Shortly after 3:15 p.m., he uttered his famous final words envisioning crossing a river to rest under the shade of trees.

Jackson awoke in a delirium crying, "A. P. Hill to prepare for action! Pass the infantry to the front rapidly. Tell Major Hawks..." before his spirit passed away.

10 Key Ideas

1. Thomas Jonathan Stonewall Jackson emerged from an orphaned and obscure background to become a ruthless, deeply religious military genius whose aggressive tactics nearly preserved the Confederacy.
2. Thomas J. Jackson overcame severe childhood trauma and early professional failures by developing an uncompromising moral code and a belief in divine fatalism.
3. The escalating national crisis over slavery and John Brown's raid led Virginia to secede, thrusting Jackson from academia into military mobilization.
4. Jackson transformed undisciplined volunteers into a formidable military unit through relentless drilling, strict discipline, and exceptional logistical mastery.
5. Jackson executed a brilliant, lightning-fast campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, using speed and interior lines to defeat superior Union forces sequentially.
6. Partnered with Robert E. Lee, Jackson played a central role in lifting the siege of Richmond and crushing Union forces at Second Manassas.
7. Stonewall Jackson utilized an unfinished railroad embankment as a linear fortification to successfully repel successive Union assaults.
8. After fighting a bloody stalemate at Antietam, Jackson achieved his greatest tactical masterpiece at Chancellorsville before falling to friendly fire.
9. Stonewall Jackson executed a massive and secret flank march around the Union army, striking the right wing completely by surprise.
10. Stonewall Jackson was mistakenly shot and mortally wounded by his own men due to poor communication during nighttime reconnaissance.