I never haeard that story about the pen knife but it is entirely in keeping with his character.

Is Fort Bragg named after Braxton Bragg?

Yes.

Two pieces of trivia about Jackson. Nah, make it three. OK, four.

1) Jackson's beloved sister was a staunch Unionist throughout the war and divorced her husband because he supported the south.
2) His name was Thomas Jackson, not Thomas Jonathon Jackson. The origination of this belief is not know. Jackson himself occasionally signed his name Thomas J. Jackson but never used the Jonathon, which was the name of his father who deserted the family when Jackson was an infant.
3) Nobody ever called Jackson 'Stonewall' to his face. Jackson himself believed that the name should be applied only to the brigade he commanded since they did the actual work, and after his death it was officially named the 'Stonewall Brigade'. Brigades were usually named after their commanders, so this was the only unit so honored. When you stop and think about it, Stonewall was probably not the best nickname since it refers to an action where Jackson was on the defense and he actually was better known for his daring on the offense.
4) Jackson's men respected him rather than loved him, he was a hard man to love. The called him 'Old Jack' which was an improvement on his nickname while an instructor at VMI. There the students called him 'Tom Fool Jackson' or 'Old Square Box' in reference to the size of his feet.

"Is Fort Bragg named after Braxton Bragg?" ....as Non-Sequitur has correctly stated Ft. Bragg was named after Braxton Bragg a native North Carolinian.....during WWI and WWII the Army established many Camps in the South for training troops because the climate was more favorable...they mostly named them after Southern generals ie Polk, Gordon, Benning, Hood, Bragg, Jackson ect.....some were shut down after the wars [like Camp Forrest] but some became permanant installations and were renamed Forts....it will be interesting to see whether in the future they will be able to keep their names.....I expect that it's only a matter of time before someone like Jesse Jackson attempts to make an issue of it....

Good luck to everybody!

Stonewalls

Is Fort Bragg named after Braxton Bragg?

Yup. Must have been named by some Yankee with an evil sense of humor. Two of my gg grandfathers served under Bragg. They both hated his guts. My husband did part of his training at Bragg (the rest was at the Benning School for Wayward Boys). He didn't think much of the place either. :-D

i would prefer that nobody mention GEN Jackson & a scalawag in the same sentence.

free dixie,sw

Yup. Must have been named by some Yankee with an evil sense of humor.

Nah, if it had been a Yankee with an evil sense of humor then it would have been called Fort Sherman.

Army posts were usually named after a former soldier with some link to the state. Braxton Bragg (Fort Bragg) was born in North Carolina. John Bell Hood (Fort Hood)commanded a brigade from Texas. Leonidas Polk (Fort Polk) was the Episcopal Bishop of Loisiana. And so forth.

i would be interested in knowing who the historian is & what the source of his information is.i suspect that this is just one more attempt to besmirch the name of a great man/hero.

but no scalping party.

also, PLEASE smallcase my screen-name- it's an Indian thing.

for a free dixie,sw

You would be surprised how well ol' William Tecumseh was LIKED in the South after the War. I think the reason was that he believed in "total war and total peace", and tried to defend the South against the radical Republicans kicking the South while she was down.

He was a regular speaker at UCV encampments and was warmly welcomed. One of my gg grandfathers was head of the Eufaula AL encampment of the UCV (then I think called the ACV), and they had Sherman as a guest speaker at one point. W.T. probably isn't as well liked in the Atlanta area and points south and east of Atlanta . . . but the Alabama UCVs had no problem having him as their guest.

My favorite through-the-looking-glass story about former Confederates is the tale of Fightin' Joe Wheeler at San Juan yelling to his men, "Now, at them, boys, and wipe those Yankees off the face of the earth!" LOL!

Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson - a great American and one of the greatest military geniuses in western history. If not for the Chancellorsville accident, the Civil War might have turned out very differently.

He would have done at Gettysburg what that fat viper Longstreet did his best to sabotage.

Madam, you have just made this poor Yankee's day. You are among the first Southerners and the first Georgian that I have come across with a nice thing to say about Willie T. Thank you, and watch your back.

I have full confidence in the protection of the shades of my various Confederate Veteran ancestors! If W.T. was good enough for them, he's good enough for me! (I had Georgia relatives in the war too, but have no idea what their opinion of Sherman was. They were all from up around Rome GA and Sherman burned Rome mostly down on his way through.)

My GG was Co I 10th Va. Inf. under Jackson, Ewell, Early.

He would have done at Gettysburg what that fat viper Longstreet did his best to sabotage.

Don't be too hard on Longstreet, there were other factors at play at Gettysburg. Two/thirds of the army were under brand new corps commanders - Hill and Ewell - and their performance was less than stirling. There is no evidence that Jackson would have had any better luck taliking Lee into altering the plan for attack on the second day, and nothing to suggest that his troops would have done better than Longstreets. And Lee's plans on both the second day and the third day were fatally flawed to begin with. So Jackson's presence may not have mattered. And even if it did, Gettysburg would have been just another loss for the North, like Chancellorsville. The war would have continued, Grant would still have taken Vicksburg and come east, and the North would still have won eventually.

All my gg grandfathers on dad's side were with the Army of Tennesee under A.S. Johnson, Bragg and J.E. Johnston. Two were with Hill (Manigault's Brigade), one in artillery (Dent's Florida/Alabama Battery) and one in the Partisan Rangers (51st Alabama). Another was at Shiloh, can't remember what unit. His brother in law was killed on the battlefield and he took over as captain of the unit - but declined a permanent appointment. I have the feeling that he had a really hard time (he was much older than the average soldier) and never talked about it much. His wife died in childbirth during the war, he never remarried. There's a sad story there, I think, but I don't know it. The other two saw a lot of action (both were wounded) and were enthusiastic post-war UCV types, they seem to have weathered combat a little better. Funny, because one was your classic "death or glory" type fire-eating officer, while the other was a plain man's private and very shy. The fourth never saw active service, but his older brothers did.

As for Mom's side, half of them emigrated here from Scotland during the War, and never served. The other half seem to have been either too old or too young - although I don't have absolutely solid info because family history on that side is somewhat attenuated by early deaths, descent from youngest children, etc. Other side makes up for it though!

stand watie,

Robertson is a professor at Virginia Tech, where he has taught Civil War History for at least 20 years. I took a year of his course in 1985, and found his teaching style very engaging and enlightening. I never found him making excuses for behavior, but more focusing on the religious and family ties that lead them to act the ways in which they do to honor those two things.

He has authored numerous books on the CW, including a long biography of Jackson. One of his best is "Soldiers Blue & Gray" which tells the story of the war through letters of soldiers on each side.

Hokie Bird

Yours is a heritage of service and contribution to American liberty.

It is not readilly given to us in the 21st century to appreciate the depth and breath of sacrifice offered up by our ancestors to "the cause." These brave men did not see themselves as fighting to preserve slavery, as modern PC revisionist historians would have us believe, but saw themselves, by God's grace, as the direct descendents of the heroes of the American revolution and custodians of the liberities bequethed to them. This is why they regarded their struggle to be the Second American Revolution. They fought for their precious liberties and harth and home. No one who has even a superficial knowledge of the horrors of a civil war battlefield can believe this degree of sacrifice was animated by a greedy ambition to maintain the economic advantages of slavery. Most of the men who served and sacrificed under Jackson, for example, in the Stonewall Brigade did not own slaves. They were yoemen from the great valley of Virginia, small farmers, not plantation masters.

Their struggle is a service to American liberty and is a important reason why we are not descending quite so fast into the leftist swamps spreading and deepening throughout Europe.

i haven't read that book. will look for it at the library.

for a FREE dixie REPUBLIC,sw

Salute to the man who kicked "Fighting Joe" Hooker's ass at Chancellorsville! A gallant soldier and superb tactician. The Yankees couldn't field a General who was his equal.