(TS) Stonewall Jackson was a military strategist and confident leader in the Confederate Army, Stonewall is not his name, but he earned it through his strict and impressive coordination of his men . Although he took the not so popular side of the war, he is undoubtedly one of the best generals in the war. Unfortunately he died due to one of his men accidentally shooting him. His life was full of danger and success like everyone else and he died like everyone else. Jackson did not have a happy childhood as his father and sister died of typhus when he was only two years old. His mother was widowed before she was thirty and left with large debts, eventually impoverishing their family. She later remarried only to have her husband strongly dislike her children. This inevitably caused Thomas to move in with his uncle who worked in a sawmill. Unfortunately he died only a few years after Thomas' arrival. A few years later he was accepted at West Point and graduated in 1846, thus beginning his military career. He entered the Mexican-American War from 1846 to 1848 as a second lieutenant of the 1st Artillery Regiment, this is where he first met Robert E. Lee. During his tour he was promoted to Major, however he resigned to pursue a very different career. After the Mexican-American War he took a teaching job at the Virginia Military Institute. While some argue that his teaching was unorthodox, it is suggested that it stemmed from his hard work and strict upbringing. However, he was unsuccessfully petitioned to leave his post as a philosophy teacher. The Virginia Military Institute recently stated that although Mr. Jackson's teaching was unwanted and unappreciated at the time, his works are now invaluable to the institution. From 1851 to 1861 his life... in the middle of paper... against the unions 130,000. The plan was not for complete annihilation but to rout the enemy, to rout an enemy means to discourage him to the point where he retreats. While Lee held the front line, LTG Jackson bypassed the enemy's flanks with 28,000 troops inflicting a huge amount of casualties on the Union soldiers, so the victory took its toll. When he immediately rejoined the main force following their victorious flank, Jackson was pinned down three times by friendly fire and received medical treatment that caused his left arm to be amputated. When Lee heard this he said:(1) “Jackson has lost his left arm; I lost my left arm." Unfortunately he died of phenomena ten days later on May 10, 1863. Because he was such an asset to the Confederacy, this essentially crippled their morale. This should be an example of how war can create or destroy whoever it wants.