Stonewall Jackson: The Spiritual Side
by Dr. David T Myers – Sprinkle Publications

This study is thoughtfully done, exploring a variety of aspects of the great general’s life.  It is historically accurate and gives fresh insight into the genius of the ‘mighty Stonewall’.  It will profit any believer, not just those interested int he Civil War or military history.  It is to be hoped that other such studies on notable personalities of faith will be stimulated hereby.  I whole-heartedly recommend it.  - Rand W. Hackenburg, Assistant Curator, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle, PA

Thomas Jonathan Jackson was born on January 21, 1824 in Clarksburg, Virginia. He entered West Point in July 1842 and, in spite of his poor childhood education, worked hard to graduate seventeenth in his class in 1846. Upon graduation, Jackson was sent on military duty to Mexico, and continued his service in the United States Army in positions in New York and Florida. In 1851, Jackson became professor of artillery tactics and natural philosophy at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. He resigned from the army as of February 29, 1852.

It was during the Battle of Bull Run in the Civil War when Jackson assumed his nickname. Amidst the tumult of battle, Brigadeer-General Barnard E. Bee stated, “There is Jackson standing like a stone wall.” As the war continued, Jackson continually impressed his Confederate compatriots with his skill on the battlefield and in planning conferences. He distinguished himself in the Valley campaign of early 1862, the Battle of second Manassas in August 1862, and the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862. Jackson was a Southern hero, and in spite of his eccentricities, he was loved and respected by his soldiers. He strictly observed the Sabbath, and his religiousity was constant in all facets of his life.

On May 2, 1863, in his last march of the Civil War, Jackson was wounded by friendly fire. He died of pneumonia several days later on May 10 at Guiney’s Station, Virginia. His body was carried to Richmond and then to Lexington where it was buried.

sources: Dictionary of American Biography

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By Verena Dobnik
The Courier Journal via The Associated Press
December 26, 2011

NEW YORK – One of America’s most famous images, a painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware River, got much of the story wrong: The American commander wouldn’t have stood triumphantly on a rowboat in daylight, but on a ferry bracing himself against a fierce snowstorm on Christmas night.

Artist Mort Kunstler says he painted a more historically accurate version of Washington crossing the Delaware. The painting goes on display this week in New York.

That’s the historic scene depicted in a new painting that goes on display this week at the New-York Historical Society museum in Manhattan.

“No one in his right mind would have stood up in a rowboat in that weather,” artist Mort Kunstler said. “It would have capsized.”

He told The Associated Press that he’s “not knocking the original” — the well-known 1851 painting by German-born artist Emanuel Leutze, who Kunstler says “was glorifying Washington using what he knew at the time.” But Kunstler said his new piece is aimed at righting the historical mistakes.

Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware from Pennsylvania to New Jersey to mount a surprise attack on Hessian forces at the Battle of Trenton on Dec. 26, 1776. The Americans killed 22 Hessians, wounded 98 and captured nearly 900 while losing only three of their own men.

It was a daring feat led by the man who would become the nation’s first president, and boosted the morale of the fledgling American army.

Relying on military experts and historians, plus visits to the river site, Kunstler came up with a list of inaccuracies in Leutze’s painting and set out to correct them in his new work.

The most obvious is that Washington would not have used the earliest stars-and-stripes flag that appears in the Leutze work; it wasn’t adopted until 1777.

Instead of a rowboat, the troops probably boarded a flat-bottomed ferry big and stable enough to carry cannons, plus the horses to pull them, Kunstler said. Such boats were hitched to cables to stabilize them.

The Leutze painting shows the New Jersey shore clearly in the distance. But Kunstler says documents show a nor’easter had swept in that night, bringing freezing rain, hail and snow that would have cut the visibility.

The new painting shows a determined Washington holding onto a cannon, illuminated by a torch as he heads into battle outnumbered and underequipped.

His troops were a ragtag bunch. Instead of military uniforms, they likely wore hunting jackets and wool caps, Kunstler said.

While he was able to verify the weather, time of day and vessel type, the artist said, he based other details like clothing “on probability.”

“I don’t see any reason you can’t make this scene dramatic and exciting — and historically correct,” said Kunstler, an 81-year-old Brooklyn native.

His painting, titled “Washington’s Crossing: McKonkey’s Ferry, Dec. 26, 1776,” debuts today.

Leutze’s painting is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on the other side of Central Park. However art lovers must wait a few more weeks before they can compare the two paintings in real life: The Leutze piece is in storage pending the Jan. 16 opening of the new American Wing.

Met spokesman Harold Holzer said Leutze “made the scene as dramatic as he could, and it obviously has had an impact on people.”

Holzer plans to participate in today’s presentation of Kunstler’s painting

Coming soon!

The American military’s two founding principles, Exemplary Conduct and Military Prayer, are now nearly gone from practice and memory.  However, in 1774, their long history began, including Congressional regulations requiring, 1) Exemplary Conduct and; 2) prayer in the U.S. Armed Forces, which were fully practiced and enforced until the last few decades.

This collection of illustrative historic prayers beginning in 1774 and drawn from 67 prayer books were printed and distributed both at private and public expense, then distributed within the military.  This collection serves a dual purpose: First it demonstrates the necessity of prayer to America’s military mission. General George Marshall was not alone when he said “morale,” – the essential element of achieving military objectives – came from the “religious fervor of the soul” and is ignored at great peril, as soldiers are substantially disarmed when they face the rigor and horror of war with only guns and orders.

Secondly, at a time when prayer is being disregarded and treated more like a ceremonial formality in military and non-military circumstances, this collection of prayers is useful, educational, and historic, both in the military and civilian worlds.  This collection allows anyone of any station or faith, the opportunity to draw from its pages a prayer associated with an historic occasion or historic figure.

As the voices of presidents and military heroes recorded in this book have continuously maintained, America and her fighting forces must not lose touch with our nation’s understanding of the “Creator” named in the Declaration of Independence, and His broad and great endowment of our “One Nation Under God.”  For the military to lose or ignore the “religious fervor of the soul” is done at ‘great peril.”  Thus, mindful of this need First Principles presents, “Endowed by Their Creator: A Collection of Historic American Military Prayers 1774-Present.”

Available February 29, 2012
Endowed by Their Creator: A Collection of Historic American Military Prayers
SPECIAL!  Pre-order the book for $9.95 (Retail $12.95)

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The past few days when I’ve been at that window upstairs, I’ve thought a bit of the “shining city upon a hill.” The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we’d call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it, and see it still.

First Principles is publishing a collection of illustrative historic prayers beginning in 1774 and drawn from 67 prayer books, printed and distributed both at private and public expense, then distributed within the military.  The collection serves a dual purpose: First it demonstrates the necessity of prayer to America’s military mission. General George Marshall was not alone when he said “morale,” the essential element of achieving military objectives, came from the “religious fervor of the soul” and is ignored at great peril, as soldiers are substantially disarmed when they face the rigor and horror of war with only guns and orders.

Secondly, at a time when prayer is being disregarded and treated more like a ceremonial formality in military and non-military circumstances, this collection of prayers is most useful – besides being educational and historic – in the civilian world.  The collection allows anyone of any station or faith, the opportunity to draw from its pages a prayer associated with an historic occasion or prayed by an historic figure.  To wit, 70 percent of the prayers found in the 67 historic prayer books were given in or acknowledge Jesus Christ’s name.  Coincidentally, this same percentage parallels the number of Americans who identify themselves as Christians.

Today, America’s enemies would likely agree with General Marshall’s assessment of the “soldier’s equipment”, as many of America’s enemies exhibit a high degree of another “religious fervor.”  As the voices of presidents and military heroes recorded in this book have continuously maintained, America and her fighting forces must not lose touch with our nation’s understanding of the “Creator” named in the Declaration of Independence, and His broad and great endowment of our “One Nation Under God.”  For the military to lose or ignore the “religious fervor of the soul” is done at ‘great peril.”  Thus, mindful of this need First Principles presents, “Endowed by Their Creator: A Collection of Historic American Military Prayers 1774-Present.”  Coming soon!   Below is a prayer from the collection:

Keep Me From Bitterness

Keep me from bitterness.  It is so easy
To nurse sharp bitter thoughts each dull dark hour!
Against self-pity, Man of sorrows, defend me,
With Thy deep sweetness and Thy gentle power.
And out of all this hurt of pain and heartbreak
Help me to harvest a new sympathy
For suffering human kind, a wiser pity
For those who lift a heavier cross with Thee…

Amen.
Anonymous
Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Prayer Book 1944

On January 6, 1838, Samuel Morse demonstrated his telegraph system for the first time at the Speedwell Iron Works in Morristown, New Jersey. The telegraph would eventually revolutionize long-distance communication and was a precursor to modern day, world wide media communication.  The telegraph reached the height of its popularity in the 1920s and 1930s.

Morse spent several years developing a prototype which he would use in 1843 to convince a skeptical Congress to fund the construction of the first telegraph line in the United States, from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore. In May 1844, Morse sent the first official telegram, with the message: “What hath God wrought!”

The famous Morse Code was invented with the telegraph to eliminate the need for a special telegraph dictionary, and the encoding and decoding of each word transmitted.  Instead, letters and numbers were represented by dots and dashes.

By 1866 the first successful permanent line across the Atlantic Ocean was constructed and by the end of century, lines were laid on nearly every continent.

George W. Bush
December 4th, 2003

Throughout the Christmas season our thoughts turn to a star in the east, seen 20 centuries ago, and to a light that can guide us still. . . . The story of Christmas is familiar to us all, and it still holds a sense of wonder and surprise. When the good news came first to a young woman from Nazareth, her response was understandable. She asked, “How can this be?” The news would bring difficulty to her family and suspicion upon herself. Yet, Mary gave her reply, “Be it unto me according to Thy word.” The wait for a new king had been long, and the manner of his arrival was not as many had expected. The king’s first cries were heard by shepherds and cattle. He was raised by a carpenter’s son. Yet this one humble life lifted the sights of humanity forever. And in His words we hear a voice like no other. . . . We don’t know all of God’s ways, yet the Christmas story promises that God’s purpose is justice and His plan is peace. At times this belief is tested. During the Civil War, Longfellow wrote a poem that later became a part of a Christmas carol, “Hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on Earth, good will to men.” That poem also reminds us that hate is not the final word: “Then pealed the bells more loud and deep, ‘God is not dead, nor doth He sleep, the wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on Earth, good will to men.’”

In the happiness of this Eve of the most blessed day in the year, I give to all of my countrymen the old, old greeting – “Merry Christmas – Happy Christmas.” . . . Let us rather pray that we may be given strength to live for others – to live more closely to the words of the Sermon on the Mount and to pray that peoples in the nations which are at war may also read, learn and inwardly digest these deathless words. May their import reach into the hearts of all men and of all nations. I offer them as my Christmas message:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
“Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
“Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

On the 4th Thursday of November each year, Americans gather around their tables and with families and friends to commemorate Thanksgiving.   This day is one of only two national holidays in the American calendar.  The other national holiday is Independence Day or July 4th the day we celebrate our independence from Great Britain, as declared in the Declaration of Independence, the document in which our founding fathers declared that it was a self-evident truth that there was a “Creator” and our rights, duties and liberties, and the American system of law and civil government came from the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” 

 With the threat of the hangman’s noose for treason over their heads, our Founding Fathers grasped together their hands one with another and declared:

“for the support of this Declaration with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

As for Thanksgiving, the Pilgrim fathers on their way to Northern America or New England, fully recognized the parallel nature of their journey, to that of the Hebrew children.  Like the Israelites who also sought independence, theirs from the Egyptians.  Just as the Pilgrims traversed the wide Atlantic Ocean, the Israelites in their Exodus realized a great deliverance at the Red Sea, which parted and permitted them go over on dry land and which closed up over Pharaoh and his mighty army and they were destroyed.

Pilgrims who set sail on September 6, 1620 from England for some 60 days completed their journey across the stormy seas at Plymouth Rock, and immediately held a prayer service.  The courage, spirit, and faith of these stalwart Christian families was recorded around 1650 in William Bradford’s History of Plymouth Plantation:

“Being this arrived in a good harbor, and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of Heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils therefore, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth, their proper element.”

The Pilgrims stood in the cold chill of the harsh New England winter at the edge of a hostile wilderness, surrounded by hardship but strengthened by their quiet confidence in God as recounted by Bradford’s History:

“This poor people’s present condition… no friends to welcome them, nor inns to entertain or refresh their weatherbeaten bodies, no houses… to repair to… Whichever way they turned their eyes (save upward to the heavens) they could have little solace… For summer being done, all things stand upon them… and thickets, represented a wild and savage hue.  If they looked behind them, there was the mighty ocean… What could now sustain them but the Spirit of God and His grace?”

Before any disembarking, the company on the Mayflower drew up The Mayflower Compact, the first document of civil government in the New World, of which it has been observed that this constituted the first time in recorded history when free men had voluntarily covenanted together to formulate their own government.  Thus was the precedent for America as a Constitutional Republic set:

“In the name of God, Amen…Having undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these present, solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one of another covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the end aforesaid…”

Land had been sighted on November 8, 1620, and it took several days to find good harbor at Plymouth Rock, and then eight days to dispatch all goods and passengers from the Mayflower as it anchored in deep waters.  Hardships were only beginning.  Future Governor Bradford’s wife fell overboard and drowned.  In time, 99 of the original 102 passengers went ashore and commenced to endure a most miserable existence.  Before a year had passed, only half of those from the Mayflower were still alive.  In the middle of March 1621, a Sagamore Indian had been watching the Pilgrims and walked into their camp.  His name was Samoset who had had interaction with other English ships and spoke some English.  He provided advice about other Indian tribes and recommended meeting Chief Massosoit and a parlay was arranged.  With them was Squanto, the last surviving Patuxet Indian, who spoke excellent English and served as interpreter, and taught the Pilgrims how to farm and survive.

Over a century after Bradford’s record of the Pilgrims’ plight, the first National Thanksgiving occurred in 1777, by order of the Continental Congress.  Then 12 years later, another National Thanksgiving was declared, according to the Congressional Record for September 25, 1789, immediately after approving the Bill of Rights:

“Mr. [Elias] Boudinot said he could not think of letting the [congressional] session pass without offering an opportunity to all the citizens of the United States of joining with one voice in returning to Almighty God their sincere thanks for the many blessings He had poured down upon them.  With this view, therefore, he would move the following resolution:

 

‘Resolved, That a joint committee of both Houses be directed to wait upon the President of the United States to request that he would recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer…’

 

“Mr. Roger Sherman justified the practiced of thanksgiving, on any single event, not only as a laudable one in itself but also as warranted by a number of precedents in Holy Writ… This example he thought worthy of a Christian imitation on the present occasion.”

The Resolution was delivered to President George Washington, who heartily concurred with the congressional request, declaring:

“Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor…Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26^th day of November 1789… that we may all then unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation.”

Following Washington’s first Proclamation, other Thanksgiving Proclamations occurred sporadically at the state level for the next several decades.  An annual national celebration did not occur until 1863, due to the diligent efforts of Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale, the editor of Godeyis Ladis Book, who spent over two decades petitioning to President after President for a national Thanksgiving Day.  At last, President Abraham Lincoln responded in 1863 by setting aside the last Thursday of November, declaring:

“We are prone to forget the Source from which [the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies] come… No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things.  They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God… I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States… to observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father Who dwelleth in the heavens.”

America’s institutions, the official historian named as the Librarian of the Library of Congress, our society, and government often must decide what is important enough to be remembered.  Then the national saga and founding must be remembered and must be taught in history and celebrated in annual tradition.  America’s celebration of Thanksgiving each year is evidence and testimony to the living fact that our nation is, as a matter of law, fact and history, a “Christian Nation,” as also determined by the U.S. supreme Court on four separate occasions from 1844 to 1931.  Please enjoy the day and remember the nation is blessed whose God is the Lord.

Acknowledgement:  We are grateful to David Barton, Wallbuilders, Des Griffen of Midnight Messenger, and other historians for the excellent research, which aided our summary.