Uncle T and the Uppity Spy: Is Stonewall Jackson’s historical fiction book 70% true and 30% fiction story written in an adult form, but the graphically laid out cover is designed to attract young viewers even though the lead character Jim Lewis did not begin his relationship with Stonewall Jackson until his adult age?
General Thomas Stonewall Jackson’s amputated arm is buried in a separate grave from the rest of his body. It is ironic to this author that the same arm that handed Bibles to enslaved African Americans and broke the law by teaching them how to read and write is separated from the rest of the general’s remains.
Stonewall Jackson’s arm was buried a few days before his death due to complications from the wound. The arm was laid to rest at Ellwood Manor on the Wilderness Battlefield. Several attempts have been made to exhume the arm, but it has always been returned to the ground. Although Jackson’s body is buried in Lexington, Virginia, more than twenty miles away from his death location, which is now the Stonewall Jackson Shrine, his arm remains separated from his body.
It is a powerful symbol that Stonewall Jackson’s body was separated from his soul. This symbolizes the divide in understanding his true legacy. Honored as a war hero and glamorized for his contributions to the battlefield’s violence, it was, in fact, the hand that extended compassion and education to enslaved African Americans that truly represents what Stonewall Jackson gave to the world.
Stonewall Jackson’s hat is considered the true symbol of his identity and what he represented in America. Black leaders from the South founded a brand-new church in 1870 called the Colored (now “Christian”) Methodist Episcopal Church. Jackson’s training programs for freeing black and enslaved people helped to spark a thriving black religious community in the South, which made this possible. Despite his legal obstacles, Jackson remained committed to his Christian beliefs and passed them on to others, making him one of the most influential figures in the growth of black religion in the South.
