Stonewall Jackson: Great General Series
By Donald A. Davis

Foreword by Gen. Wesley K. Clark. Illustrated, index, selected bibliography, 194 pp; 2007. Palgrave Macmillan, 175 Fifth Ave., New York, N.Y. 10010, $21.95 plus shipping.

Reviewer: George Khoury
George Khoury is an adjunct professor at University of Central Florida. He will present a workshop this summer at the Civil War Preservation Trust's Teacher Institute. He has taught the war from a Southern perspective and is the winner of six National Endowment for the Humanities History grants.

Review:
In reading this book I kept coming back to haunting questions: Why was this book written? Did this book contribute anything new to the body of research?

Why would a publisher print a book that offered no new insights into Jackson?

A red flag goes up when information written in a book cannot be directly linked to a source and that is the case here.

This book reads, typos and poor sentence structure and all, like it was written in a weekend and edited in an hour.
Devoid of maps or even sketches of battle plans, this book offers no insights into the man or myth. Jackson was one of the most quoted and quotable leaders in the war, yet here he is presented in one dimension.

Much could have been made of his relationship with Lee in planning and implementing strategies — it wasn’t. Much could have been made about how he cultivated intelligence reports — it wasn’t. Much could have been made of the specific tactics used in the Valley campaigns — it wasn’t.

I looked for information that helped forge his beliefs on slavery and race and found none. To gain insight into the strong personality of Jackson you could look at how he taught slaves and free black children to read every Sunday he was home in Lexington. You could understand him when you looked at how he related to his own slaves/servants.

The authors could have made much about how Jackson’s men related or in some of his stern punishment orders. If he executed so many remarkable victories, at least reveal how he managed his men. How did he motivate them, maintain discipline or even morale?

The photos included are ones we have seen for many years and demonstrated very little in breaking new ground about Jackson

James Robertson’s 1997 book, Stonewall Jackson: The Man, Soldier, the Legend, has to nothing to worry about in being dethroned as the premier reference book on Stonewall Jackson.