II CORPS
The troops comprising the Second Corps originate known as the Second Corps of the Army of the Potomac, under the command of Major General Gustavus W. Smith. This unit was also known as the Second Division and was eventually subsumed into general Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia as a reserve in Maj. Gen. D. H. Hill's Division. When Lee was able to reorganize his army after finishing battles with Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan on the peninsula, he created this corps under the command of Lieutenant General Jackson, along with a sister corps under Lt. Gen. James Longstreet. Lee's reorganization was based on his evaluation of the performance of his division commanders during the Seven Days Campaign.
LT-GEN THOMAS JONATHAN "STONEWALL" JACKSON:
(January 21, 1824 – May 10, 1863)
Jackson was born in what was then part of Virginia. He received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. He served in the U.S. Army during the Mexican–American War and distinguished himself at Chapultepec. From 1851 to 1863, he taught at the Virginia Military Institute, where he was unpopular with his students. During this time, he married twice. His first wife died, but his second, Mary Anna Morrison, outlived him by many years. When Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861 after the attack on Fort Sumter, Jackson followed it and joined the Confederate Army. He distinguished himself commanding a brigade at the First Battle of Bull Run the following month, providing crucial reinforcements and beating back a fierce Union assault. It was there that Barnard Elliott Bee Jr., allegedly for Jackson's courage and tenacity, compared him to a "stone wall", which became his enduring nickname.
Jackson performed audaciously in 1862's campaigns in the Shenandoah Valley. Despite an initial defeat due largely to faulty intelligence, through swift and careful maneuvers Jackson was able to defeat three separate Union armies and prevent any of them from reinforcing the Army of the Potomac in its campaign against Richmond. Jackson then quickly moved his three divisions to reinforce General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia in its defense of Richmond. His performance in the subsequent Seven Days Battles against George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac was poor, but did not cost the Confederacy the battles. During the Northern Virginia Campaign that summer, Jackson's troops captured and destroyed an important supply depot for General John Pope's Army of Virginia, and then withstood repeated assaults from Pope's troops at the Second Battle of Bull Run. Jackson's troops played a prominent role in September's Maryland Campaign, capturing the town of Harpers Ferry, an important strategic location, and providing an important defense of the Confederate Army's right flank at Antietam. At Fredericksburg in December, Jackson's corps buckled but ultimately beat back an assault by the Union Army under Major General Ambrose Burnside.
In May 1863, faced with a tremendous threat from the larger Union Army, now commanded by Joseph Hooker, Lee divided his force three ways. On May 2, Jackson took his 30,000 troops and launched a surprise attack against the Union right flank, driving the opposing troops back about two miles. That evening, he was accidentally shot by pickets. The general survived but lost his left arm to amputation; he died of complications from pneumonia eight days later. Military historians consider Jackson to be one of the most gifted tactical commanders in U.S. history.[3] His tactics are studied even today. His death was a severe setback for the Confederacy, affecting not only its military prospects, but also the morale of its army and of its general public. Jackson in death became an icon of Southern heroism and commitment. His daring military exploits, often while at a numerical disadvantage, play a prominent part in Confederate lore.
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