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Next to Robert E. Lee himself, Thomas J. Jackson is the most revered of all Confederate commanders. A graduate of West Point, he had served in the artillery in the Mexican War, earning two brevets, before resigning to accept a professorship at the Virginia Military Institute. Thought strange by the cadets, he earned "Tom Fool Jackson" and Old Blue Light" as nicknames. Thomas Jonathon Jackson was born on January 21st, 1824. He was orphaned at age 7 …

…duty but his religious duties as well. Jackson was a kind and gentle husband with a great love of children, of which only one survived him; he died while she was still an infant. While he may have had true medical problems he was certainly by our standards today a hypochondriac. Although at first misunderstood by his subordinates, peers and superiors, they would regard him as a great man, for that is what he was.