Editing Stonewall Jackson (section)

==Lexington and the Virginia Military Institute==
[[File:YoungStonewallJackson.jpg|thumb|Stonewall Jackson]]
In the spring of 1851,<ref>Robertson, pp. 108–10. He left the Army on March 21, 1851, but stayed on the rolls, officially on furlough, for nine months. His resignation took effect formally on February 2, 1852, and he joined the VMI faculty in August 1851.</ref> Jackson accepted a newly created teaching position at the [[Virginia Military Institute]] (VMI). He became Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy, or Physics, and Instructor of Artillery.

Jackson was disliked as a teacher, with his students nicknaming him "Tom Fool", believing that Jackson "could never be anything more than a [[wikt:martinet#Noun|martinet]] colonel, half soldier and half preacher".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Eggleston |first=George Cary |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NvQ4OSS__bEC |title=A Rebel's Recollections |publisher=Putnam |year=1875 |pages=152 |language=en |author-link=George Cary Eggleston}}</ref> He memorized his lectures and then recited them to the class. Students who came to ask for help were given the same explanation as before. If a student asked for help a second time, Jackson simply repeated the explanation slower and more deliberately.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Vandiver |first=Frank E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bDyJETtR0TIC |title=Mighty Stonewall |publisher=Texas A&M University Press |year=1989 |isbn=9780890963913 |pages=77 |language=en |author-link=Frank Vandiver}}</ref> In 1856, a group of alumni attempted to have Jackson removed from his position.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2001 |title=Stonewall Jackson – Frequently Asked Questions – VMI Archives |url=http://www.vmi.edu/archives/Jackson/tjjfaq.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061231172928/http://www.vmi.edu/archives/Jackson/tjjfaq.html |archive-date=December 31, 2006 |access-date=September 7, 2015 |website=Virginia Military Institute Archives}}</ref>

The founder of VMI and one of its first two faculty members was [[John Thomas Lewis Preston]]. Preston's second wife, [[Margaret Junkin Preston]], was the sister of Jackson's first wife, [[Elinor Jackson|Elinor]]. In addition to working together on the VMI faculty, Preston taught Sunday School with Jackson and served on his staff during the Civil War.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Johnson |first=Clint |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IZI_y8Td5HUC&pg=PA122 |title=In the Footsteps of Stonewall Jackson |publisher=John F. Blair |year=2002 |isbn=0-89587-244-7 |location=Winston-Salem, North Carolina |page=122}}</ref>

===Slavery===
[[File:Stonewall Jackson by HB Hull, 1855.png|thumb|Stonewall Jackson in 1855]]

Jackson was not known to the white inhabitants of Lexington, instead mostly being known by many of the African Americans in town, both slaves and free blacks.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chisholm |first=Hugh |url=http://archive.org/details/encyclopaediabri15chisrich |title=The Encyclopaedia Britannica : a dictionary of arts, sciences, literature and general information |publisher=Encyclopaedia Britannica |others=Internet Archive |year=1910 |location=New York |pages=110 |language=en-US}}</ref> In 1855, he organized Sunday School classes for blacks at the Presbyterian Church. His second wife, [[Mary Anna Jackson]], taught with Jackson, as "he preferred that my labors should be given to the colored children, believing that it was more important and useful to put the strong hand of the Gospel under the ignorant African race, to lift them up".<ref name="memoir78">[[#memoir|Jackson, Mary Anna, 1895]], p. 78</ref> The pastor, Dr. William Spottswood White, described the relationship between Jackson and his Sunday afternoon students: "In their religious instruction he succeeded wonderfully. His discipline was systematic and firm, but very kind. ... His servants reverenced and loved him, as they would have done a brother or father. ... He was emphatically the black man's friend." He addressed his students by name and they referred to him as "Marse Major".<ref>Robertson, p. 169.</ref>

Jackson owned six slaves in the late 1850s. Three (Hetty, Cyrus, and George, a mother and two teenage sons) were received as part of the dowry at his marriage to Mary Anna Jackson.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Knadler |first=Jessie |date=May 15, 2018 |title=New Research Sheds Light On Slaves Owned By Stonewall Jackson |url=https://www.wvtf.org/post/new-research-sheds-light-slaves-owned-stonewall-jackson |access-date=July 1, 2020 |website=www.wvtf.org |language=en}}</ref> Another slave, Albert, requested that Jackson purchase him and allow him to work for his freedom; he was employed as a waiter in one of the Lexington hotels and Jackson rented him to VMI. Amy also requested that Jackson purchase her from a public slave auction and she served the family as a cook and housekeeper. The sixth, Emma, was a four-year-old orphan with a [[learning disability]], accepted by Jackson from an aged widow and presented to his second wife, Mary Anna, as a welcome-home gift.<ref>Robertson, pp. 191–92.</ref> After Jackson was shot at Chancellorsville, a slave "Jim Lewis, had stayed with Jackson in the small house as he lay dying".<ref>{{Cite web |last2=Wessler |first=Brian |last1=Palmer |first2=Seth Freed |date=December 2018 |title=The Costs of the Confederacy |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/costs-confederacy-special-report-180970731/ |access-date=December 5, 2018 |website=Smithsonian Magazine }}</ref> Mary Anna Jackson, in her 1895 memoir, said, "our servants ... without the firm guidance and restraint of their master, the excitement of the times proved so demoralizing to them that he deemed it best for me to provide them with good homes among the permanent residents".<ref>Jackson, 152.</ref> [[James I. Robertson, Jr.|James Robertson]] wrote about Jackson's view on slavery:

{{Blockquote|Jackson neither apologized for nor spoke in favor of the practice of slavery. He probably opposed the institution. Yet in his mind the Creator had sanctioned slavery, and man had no moral right to challenge its existence. The [[Slavery in the United States#Religion|good Christian slaveholder]] was one who treated his servants fairly and humanely at all times.<ref>Robertson, p. 191.</ref>}}

===Marriages and family life===
[[File:Stonewall Jackson house.jpg|thumb|House owned by Stonewall Jackson in [[Lexington, Virginia|Lexington]]]]

While an instructor at VMI in 1853, Thomas Jackson married [[Elinor Jackson|Elinor "Ellie" Junkin]], whose father, [[George Junkin]], was president of Washington College (later named [[Washington and Lee University]]) in Lexington. An addition was built onto the president's residence for the Jacksons, and when Robert E. Lee became president of Washington College he lived in the same home, now known as the Lee–Jackson House.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Isbell |first=Sherman |author-link=<!-- Sherman Isbell --> |title=Archibald Alexander Travelogue |url=http://members.aol.com/RSISBELL/va.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050914211643/http://members.aol.com/RSISBELL/va.html |archive-date=September 14, 2005 |access-date=December 17, 2008}}
</ref> Ellie gave birth to a [[Stillbirth|stillborn]] son on October 22, 1854, experiencing a [[Obstetrical hemorrhage|hemorrhage]] an hour later that proved fatal.<ref>Robertson, p. 157.</ref>

After a tour of Europe, Jackson married again, in 1857. [[Mary Anna Jackson|Mary Anna Morrison]] was from North Carolina, where her father was the first president of [[Davidson College]]. Her sister, Isabella Morrison, was married to [[Daniel Harvey Hill]]. Mary Anna had a daughter named Mary Graham on April 30, 1858, but the baby died less than a month later. Another daughter was born in 1862, shortly before her father's death. The Jacksons named her Julia Laura, after his mother and sister.

Jackson purchased [[Stonewall Jackson House|the only house he ever owned]] while in Lexington. Built in 1801, the brick town house at 8 East Washington Street was purchased by Jackson in 1859. He lived in it for two years before being called to serve in the Confederacy. Jackson never returned to his home.

===John Brown raid aftermath===
In November 1859, at the request of the [[governor of Virginia]], Major [[William Gilham]] led a contingent of the VMI Cadet Corps to [[Charles Town, West Virginia|Charles Town]] to provide an additional military presence at the hanging of militant abolitionist [[John Brown (abolitionist)|John Brown]] on December 2, following his raid on the federal arsenal at [[Harpers Ferry, West Virginia|Harpers Ferry]] on October 16. Major Jackson was placed in command of the artillery, consisting of two [[howitzer]]s manned by twenty-one cadets.