ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 21, 1997 TAG: 9702210024
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
Thomas J. Jackson's legacy stands like a stone wall covered by a thick moss of mythology.
The most famous soldier of his time, the Southern Civil War chieftain has come to be viewed as an oddball combination of military genius and religious mysticism.
Those persistent images have generated much fascination with Jackson, but they don't do him justice, according to James I. "Bud" Robertson Jr.
Robertson's new book, "Stonewall Jackson: The Man, The Solider, The Legend," due to be released Saturday, seeks to strip away the layers of folklore.
"The man has been obscured. I discarded the legend as much as I could," says the author, a veteran Virginia Tech professor who has become a widely recognized and respected Civil War historian.
The revealing new book is substantial, more than 1,000 pages, and already a Book-of-the-Month Club selection.
"It's the best book that's ever been written about Jackson. And there have been quite a few," says Gary Gallagher, a Civil War author and Penn State University professor.
Gallagher read an advance copy of "Stonewall Jackson" and believes the book combines engaging writing and exhaustive research. Readers will get "a much more fully textured picture" of Jackson, he adds.
That was the intent, says Robertson, a courtly Southside Virginia native whose voice is familiar to listeners of his weekly Civil War public radio segment on WVTF.
"Stonewall Jackson" is the latest manifestation of Robertson's long and accomplished career as a teacher, writer, editor, lecturer, commentator, administrator and archivist.
"I didn't want anybody influencing me. I was wearing horse-blinders, as if I were doing the first biography."
Robertson's interest in Jackson dates from childhood and he's written about Stonewall many times before. Still, conjuring up the man for the new biography took seven years of research and writing.
"He was a difficult person to get to know. I had to work harder to get to the man," Robertson says.
Much has been written of Jackson's Civil War career as a commander of troops, his lightning marches, hammer blows and grim determination. His mid-war death during the Battle of Chancellorsville came to symbolize the rebel nation's roman-candle existence.
Less attention has focused on Jackson's earlier life. Robertson spackles the historical record's cracks by providing rich - and heart-rending - story telling.
"Every time he touched something, he lost it," Robertson says.
Born in 1824, raised on the rude frontier of Western Virginia, orphaned at age 7, Jackson's life was tortured by a series of deaths or separations involving family members and intimates.
To compensate for his personal losses and lack of opportunity, Jackson formed an iron self-will, best illustrated by his favorite aphorism, "You may be whatever you resolve to be."
Determination enabled Jackson to obtain an education, a career as a U.S. Army officer and a professorship at VMI. In Lexington, Jackson became a respected and prosperous small-town burgher.
There he would have preferred to have lived out his life in comfortable obscurity. But the war intruded, a conflict that gave the shy professor his immortal nickname of Stonewall.
Combat transformed Jackson into a relentless warrior. Yet the book identifies Jackson's conversion to Christianity as his life's most profound change. Spirituality helped him overcome sorrow.
"Today Jackson would be considered a fanatic. That says something about our time, not his," Robertson says.
Data for the book came from archives and collections from across the country. The author took what Robertson calls a "vacuum-cleaner" approach to research, making stacks of photocopies and reading reams of microfilm.
Robertson said the work to uncover nuggets about Jackson was like opening presents on Christmas morning. He credits his wife, Libba, with helping him accomplish the research, and dedicates the book to her.
Robertson's primary historical scoop involves Jackson's famous last words: "Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees."
The author says the grove and stream Jackson harkened back to on his deathbed were memories of his childhood on the West Fork River at a place called Jackson's Mill, in what is now West Virginia.
Jackson's epitaph is etched into a memorial window to Jackson in Roanoke, at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in Gainesboro. The window commemorates Jackson's founding of an antebellum Sunday school for Lexington blacks.
The parents of Lylburn L. Downing, a long-time pastor of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, attended the Bible classes.
"Stonewall Jackson" also includes a wartime photograph of Jackson discovered by Civil War artifacts collector Howard McManus of Roanoke that is published for the first time.
As is his custom, Robertson catalogued the book's myriad factoids on 5-by-8-inch note cards and wrote the first draft on legal paper with a No. 2 pencil.
He says writing by hand promotes brevity and limits the number of adjectives and adverbs.
He also makes no apology for being old-fashioned. "Only by learning from the past can you get a sense of the future," he says.
"Stonewall Jackson" will have its national premiere with an author's book-singing Saturday at Virginia Tech's Volume Two Bookstore in Blacksburg, from 2 to 5 p.m.
Officials are expecting a large turnout. To avoid long lines, they're asking people who want to purchase a copy of the book autographed by Robertson to sign up for time slots by calling 231-5213.
Thereafter the book, published by Macmillan and listed at $40, will be available nationally.
"It'll sell like crazy," Gallagher predicts.
Robertson, 66, is exercising his signature hand for a 40-stop tour to promote the book. "I'm busier than I've ever been, at a time I ought to be contemplating retirement," he says.
Book-signing Bud Robertson will be at Virginia Tech's Volume Two Bookstore in Blacksburg, 2-5 p.m. Saturday, to sign copies of "Stonewall Jackson." On March 1 he'll be at the Stonewall Jackson House in Lexington, noon-4 p.m.
LENGTH: Long : 121 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALAN KIM/Staff. 1. Virginia Tech professor and authorby CNBJames I. "Bud" Robertson Jr. and his wife, Libba Robertson, formed a
research team to gather material for "Stonewall Jackson: The Man,
The Solider, The Legend" 2. (inset), which will be released
Saturday. color.