To the Editors:

In regard to Richard Tillinghast’s review of S. C. Gwynne’s new biography of Thomas J. Jackson:

The 1st Tennessee Volunteer Infantry Regiment, the unit in which Sam Watkins served, most certainly did not fight “under Jackson in the famous Valley campaign.” Sam Watkins and the rest of his regiment were in Corinth, Mississippi, licking their wounds after the Battle of Shiloh in the spring of 1862 when Jackson’s “foot cavalry” were performing their spectacular feats in the Shenandoah Valley. The 1st Tennessee did, however, participate in the (West) Virginia mountain campaign of the previous year. Presumably this is the “Valley” campaign Tillinghast is thinking of.

Also, long before the War in which he earned the nickname “Stonewall,” Jackson was derisively called “Old Blue Light” by the students at VMI as a poke at his Presbyterian piety. Tillinghast apparently thinks this appellation was granted as a comment on his wartime nobility.

Either Tillinghast is passing on Gwynne’s errors unnoticed, or they are Tillinghast’s own errors. In either case, doubts are raised as to whether he is the right person to review this book.

Stewart White
Gainesville, Florida
 

To read Richard Tillinghast’s reply please click here.