Lieutenant General Thomas J. Jackson and His Family ("Stonewall Jackson")

William Sartain|Bradley & Company|Thomas Jonathan Jackson

1866 · Mezzotint, etching and stipple on chine collé · Drawings and Prints

Published three years after the death of Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, this print commemorates one of the Confederacy’s most gifted generals. Jackson served under Robert E. Lee in the Army of Northern Virginia and was widely mourned when he succumbed to pneumonia on May 10, 1863, after being gravely wounded in the dark by soldiers from his own side at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Jackson is shown with his second wife, Mary Anna Morrison, and their daughter, Julia Laura, born in November 1862. The expansive table between husband and wife indicates the separation imposed by his death, while the bible under his right hand signifies the general’s faith—as a devout Presbyterian, he declared that he felt as safe on the battlefield as he did in bed and tried to avoid fighting on Sundays. Sitting near her father’s knee, Julia Laura looks about two and a half, her age at the time the print was published. On the wall behind, a portrait of Lee, Jackson’s revered commander, and busts of the prominent Southerners John C. Calhoun and George Washington, represent Jackson’s earthly allegiances.

Artist

William Sartain|Bradley & Company|Thomas Jonathan Jackson

Date

1866

Medium

Mezzotint, etching and stipple on chine collé

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1971