re: The South lost Stonewall Jackson on this day 163 years ago...

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Probably. But what can’t be argued is that Jackson was one of the most brilliant battlefield generals of the 19th century. And his death was a profound loss for the Confederacy. One of history’s most intriguing “what ifs” is how would the Gettysburg Campaign, only two months after his death, been influenced had Stonewall Jackson still been in command of 2nd Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia?

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The south was never going to win, they put everything they had into, while the north never had to put a great effort into it. 75-85% of military aged men fought for the South, while the north only put forth about 35-50%. Also keep in mind the population of the north was 4 times that of the south, plus they had all the factories.

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The south was never going to win

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is how would the Gettysburg Campaign unfolded had Stonewall Jackson not been killed 2 months prior?

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This thread is going to be a bat signal for lost causers

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Was Stonewall Jackson actually that good? Let me end this debate.

In the spring of 1862, the Confederacy was losing. McClellan was marching 100,000 men up the Virginia Peninsula toward Richmond. The capital was about to fall. The war was about to end.

Then a weird, lemon-sucking, ex-VMI physics professor changed everything.

Thomas J. Jackson had 17,000 men in the Shenandoah Valley. The Union had three separate armies under Banks, Frémont, and Shields totaling over 60,000, all converging to crush him, then reinforce the assault on Richmond.

What Jackson did next is still taught at West Point, Sandhurst, and the Israeli Defense Forces' command college.

In 48 days, his "foot cavalry" marched 646 miles through the Blue Ridge. He fought five battles, McDowell, Front Royal, Winchester, Cross Keys, Port Republic, and won every single one. He used interior lines to appear in three places at once. He marched his men until their shoes fell off, then marched them more. He told no one his plans, not even his generals. When asked where he was going, he'd say "to do my duty."

He didn't just defeat three armies. He paralyzed them. Lincoln personally diverted 40,000 reinforcements away from Richmond to chase a ghost. McClellan's offensive collapsed. Richmond was saved.

He had done it with a third of the men.

Then came Chancellorsville, May 1863. Lee was outnumbered 130,000 to 60,000 by Hooker's army. Most generals would've retreated. Lee split his army. Then Jackson split it AGAIN, taking 28,000 men on a 12-mile flank march directly across the front of a numerically superior enemy, a maneuver textbooks call suicidal.

At dusk, his men exploded out of the woods into the unsuspecting Union right flank. The XI Corps disintegrated. It is, to this day, one of the most audacious tactical movements in the history of warfare.

Hours later, riding ahead in the dark to plan a night attack, his own men shot him by mistake. His arm was amputated. He died of pneumonia eight days later.

Lee, on hearing it: "He has lost his left arm, but I have lost my right."

Patton studied him. Rommel studied him. Moshe Dayan reportedly modeled parts of the Six-Day War on his Valley Campaign. MacArthur called him the greatest natural military genius America ever produced.

He was 39 years old.

You can hate the cause. But pretending Jackson wasn't one of the most lethal field commanders in military history is just bad history.

The man was a problem to the yankees.

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The south was never going to win, they put everything they had into, while the north never had to put a great effort into it. 75-85% of military aged men fought for the South, while the north only put forth about 35-50%. Also keep in mind the population of the north was 4 times that of the south, plus they had all the factories.

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May be the biggest mismatch of level of badass to lameness of the way they went out.

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