After General Jackson's wounding at the Battle of Chancellorsville on the night of May 2, 1863, the general was taken to the Fairview Plantation owned by the Chandler family near Guinea Station. The original plan was to move the general to Richmond, but Union cavalry had disrupted the rail lines. It was here, in the office building of the plantation that Jackson died on May 10, 1863.
The actual bed in which Jackson passed over the river to rest under the shade of the tree's.
The room where Jackson died. The clock on the mantle is original and was placed there by Mrs. Chandler to make the room look nice for the general, and it still work's!
The third original item at the Jackson Shrine is this blanket that is placed on the edge of the bed that Jackson died in. The blanket was on the bed when the general died. It is now only half it's original length because when the Chandler family donated the blanket they cut off a swath as a souvenir.
Jackson's doctors and staff officers used this room as a waiting room, it was in this room that the doctors informed Mrs. Jackson that her husband would not recover.
Upstairs the doctors and staff officers shared this room--though as Jackson's illness progressed the doctors got little rest.
Jim Lewis, Jackson's manservant was placed alone in this room--no one was expected to share a room with an enslaved man. Jackson hired Lewis from his owner in Lexington, Virginia at the start of the war.
If you are interested in General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson's wounding and death I recommend two fantastic books, "Calamity at Chancellorsville: The Wounding and Death of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson" by Matthew Lively and "The Last Days of Stonewall Jackson: The Mortal Wounding of the Confederacy's Greatest Icon (Emerging Civil War)" by Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White, both are from Savas Beatie LLC. As an extra bonus, Chris Mackowski is also a NPS volunteer at the Stonewall Jackson Shire and I had the pleasure of talking to him during my visit.
No comments:
Post a Comment