Photograph of General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson

Lieutenant General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, a revered Confederate commander, graduated from West Point in and served the U.S. Army in the Mexican War. He resigned his commission in 1851 and began teaching at the Virginia Military Institute that same year. After Virginia seceded in 1861, he was commissioned a colonel in command of a regiment. A highly successful commander, he rose to the rank of lieutenant general and commanded the 2nd Corps, Army of Northern Virginia. After a successful day at Chancellorsville, where he routed the Union 11th Corps and seriously threatened the Army of the Potomac’s flank, his own men accidentally wounded him on May 2, 1863. Following the amputation of his arm, he died eight days later from pneumonia.