said Captain Charles Blackford,rn”than Queen Elizabeth at beingrnasked to toueh for the ‘King’srnEvil.'” He took the infant tenderlyrnin his arms, “until his grayingrnbeard touched the fresh youngrnhair of the child.” To bystandersrnhe seemed to be praying. Soldiersrnstanding about removed theirrncaps, and the young womanrnbowed her head on Sorrel’s shoulder.rnThen he handed the childrnback without a word and rode offrndown the road.rnBvron Farwell’s Stonewall is a metieulouslvrnresearched, well-written, if dispassionaternreassessment of this Cromwellrnwho rode with Virginia’s cavaliers. Thernpicture Farwell paints is not an entirelyrnattractive one. Jackson was completelyrnunforgiving with subordinates but pronernto lapses himself, particularly in the battlesrnof The Seven Days. He was a poorrnjudge of men, preferring to surroundrnhimself with parsons and favorites thanrnwith talented professionals. And the secrec’rnwith which he guarded his battlernplans could appear less as justifiable securityrnthan as a means to dodge blamernand responsibility. But there is somethingrnpoignant about Jackson, the selfmadernman who triumphed over his earlyrnlack of education and pushed throughrnWest Point bv sheer force of will; thernunlikeh’ professor whose fading eyesightrnled him to avoid reading in the eveningrnand instead to concentrate in silence,rnstaring at the wall as he memorized hisrnlecture for the following day; and thernbrave veteran of the Mexican War whornwith his poor hearing and hypochondriarn(the latter of which disappeared wheneverrnhe was campaigning) would havernbeen remembered by his students at thern”Virginia Military histitute as “Tom Fool”rnJackson if the War Between the Statesrnhadn’t given him his opportunity forrnfame, glory, and success. That fame, ofrncourse, came at a bloody price, swallowingrnup hundreds of thousands of lives, ineludingrnJackson’s owrr.rnLike Lee, Jackson had been a Unionist,rnand at one point during his tenure atrnVMI, Jackson had even come to doubtrnthe morality of war, except in a defensiverncause. (For him, and for many anotherrnSoutherner, the Civil War was, withoutrnthe irony that surrounds this phrase today,rna War of Northern Aggression.)rnLike Lee also, Jackson was no bigot: hernhad admired the women in Mexico, hernliked to pepper his letters with Spanishrnwords (he considered Spanish a more romanticrnlanguage than English), he wasrnthoroughly Protestant in his own faithrnbut never countenanced anti-Catholicism,rnand he was famously the energeticrnand ardent pastor of a black Sundayrnschool. But Jackson was unwilling to seernabolition forced upon the South at thernpoint of a bayonet. For him, slavery wasrnjustified and tempered by the laws ofrnthe Bible,rnJackson was unhesitatingly preparedrnto defend the South, its spiritual andrnconstitutional liberty and its way of lifernagainst an aggressive federal power—andrnto do so with Old Testament fury. Thernmen he led, as described by a femalernUnionist observer, were not slave ownersrnor masters, but poor, Southern good oldrnboys, who arc still recognizable today;rn. . . were these dirty, lank, uglyrnspecimens of humanity, withrnshocks of hair sticking through thernholes in their hats, and thick dustrnon their dirty faces, the men whornhad coped and countered successfully,rnand driven back again andrnagain our splendid legions. . .?rnI wish you could see how theyrnbehaved—a crowd of schoolboysrnon a holiday don’t seem happier.rnThey are on the broad grin all therntime. Oh! They are so dirty!rnThey were very polite, I mustrnconfess.. . . Many of them werernbare-footed, hideed, I felt sorryrnfor the poor misguided wretches,rnfor some were limping along sornpainfully, trying to keep up withrntheir comrades.rnThese were the men who endured therntrue, awful violence and ugly horror ofrnAmericans fighting Americans, withrnmen torn apart by stinging bullets andrnscreaming artillery, men pummelingrneach other with rocks and clubs, tearingrnat each other’s flesh with bayonet andrnknife.rnJackson showed no fear with bombsrnbursting and bullets whizzing all aroundrnhim. And he certainly showed no sentimentalityrnin his gruesome business.rnWhen it came to taking Yankee prisoners,rnJackson believed it was “cheaper tornfeed them than to fight them.” But hernalso shed no tears for gallant Union soldiers.rnWhen asked how his outnumberedrnforces could hold back the Federalsrnat Fredericksburg, he shot back, “Killrnthem, sir! Kill every one.” This was thernman who, in an after-battle letter to hisrnwife, admonished her, “You must givernfifty dollars for church purposes, andrnmore should you be disposed. Keep anrnaccount of the amount, as we must givernat least one tenth of our income.”rnIt is his psychological complexity, perhaps,rnthat makes Jackson resonate so profoundlyrnin the Southern soul—the faith,rndisciplined good manners, and formalrncourtesy behind which lay violent impulsesrneager to defend the civilizationrnthat nurtured all these virtues. In hisrnhighly individual character is the gloryrnand the tragedy of an entire region ofrnAmerica. When he died, a victim ofrnthe fog of war, shot by his own men, arnConfederate soldier, Alexander TedfordrnBarclay, expressed the thought of manyrnin a letter to his sister: “A deep gloom isrnover the camp over the death of Gen.rnJackson. He was taken away from us becausernwe made almost an idol of him.”rnToday, Stonewall Jackson is long gone.rnBut in the hearts of the ever-nostalgicrnSouth, the idol remains.rnH.W. Crocker III is a writer inrnSacramento, California.rnLIBERAL ARTSrnART AND ALIENSrnThree NEA-funded artists who “specializernin making defiant culturalrnstatements” handed out signed $10rnbills to illegal aliens at a day-laborerrnsite near San Diego last August, reportsrnthe Los Angeles Times. Thern”public art piece” was commissionedrnby two local museums from arn$250,000 grant given to them inrn1989 by the NEA. The idea behindrnthe taxpayer-funded project wasrnthat, as the marked money circulates,rnpeople will see how migrantsrncontribute to the economy. SaysrnU.S. Representative Randy Cunninghamrn(R-CA), “This is outrageous.rnI can scarcely imagine a morerncontemptuous use of taxpayers’rnhardearned dollars. If artists want tornhand out cash to illegal aliens, let itrnbe their own.”rnNOVEMBER 1993/39rnrnrn