Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion & Redemption of Stonewall Jackson

Found this book after ripping through the author’s (SC Gwynne) earlier work, Empire of the Summer Moon. It did not disappoint. I grew up fascinated with Lincoln’s origin story and the Civil War in general. Empire’s setting and the writing made me take a chance and I was not disappointed.

Great read about a meteoric rise of a truly well meaning but completely personally ineffectual, genuine eccentric. A nondescript man living a nondescript life…until the war began. Which somehow acted as a telephone booth for him to walk into and then jump out of remade as a superhuman, unequaled and unrivaled-and not quite invincible-military genius.

Just a fantastic read. A life lived in a dormant state until streaking across the sky to its fitting end, which not only signaled Jackson’s literal demise, but the beginning of the eventual end of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy…

Highly readable and recommendable.