"Stonewall" Jackson: A Military Genius? An Analysis Using the Clausewitzian Framework

Abstract

"Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees." With these words on May 10, 1863, General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson passed from this world into the pages of history. Lord Frederick Roberts, commander in chief of the British armies in the early 20th century remarked: "In my opinion Stonewall Jackson was one of the greatest natural military geniuses the world has ever seen. I will go further than that -- as a campaigner in the field he never had a superior. In some respects I doubt whether he ever had an equal." Jackson's near-mythical standing, accentuated by his tragic death by fratricide, is continually contrasted with his myriad eccentricities. On one hand he is called a military genius, on the other a crazy fool and an idiot. General Douglas MacArthur characterized Jackson as "one of the most remarkable soldiers we have ever seen." Do we take the words of Roberts and MacArthur at face value and agree that Jackson was a military genius? The author evaluates the life of Stonewall Jackson using a framework developed by Carl von Clausewitz to determine if Jackson can be called a military genius.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 1998
Accession Number
ADA442056

Entities

People

  • Creid K. Johnson

Organizations

  • National War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Human Systems
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Battlefields
  • Fratricide
  • Governments
  • Information Operations
  • Leadership
  • National Security
  • New Jersey
  • New York
  • Personality
  • Schools
  • Security
  • Standards
  • United States Military Academy
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.