Talk:Military career of Stonewall Jackson

Moved from Talk:Stonewall Jackson
I just added a large section about his exact dates of rank. To clear up some of the questions, Jackson was appointed a Brevet Captain in 1849 after the Mexican War per James Robertson's book. Two days after his Captain's appointment, he recieved a letter granting him Brevet Major with a backdated date of rank. Throughout the Mexican War, per James Robertson, Jackson wore 1st Lieutenant insignia. Interestingly, Robertson also states that in Florida, even after holding his Brevet rank, Jackson still wore 1st lieutenant insignia but called himself a major.

Jackson was also granted permanent rank as a Major of Artillery after the Civil War started per Robertson's book. Robertson omits the fact that he was appointed a Confederate Colonel before being appointed a Virginia colonel. In fact, Robertson describes how Jackson went to the governor's mansion as a major and left as a colonel. Nowhere does he speak of Jackson recieving a Colonel's appointment from the Confederate government before this meeting. Do we have a source for this? -OberRanks (talk) 19:49, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed the Confederate appointment from March 1861 since Virginia herself did not join the Confederacy until April of '61. Its also not mentioned anywhere in Doctor Robertson's book as previously discussed (I just checked a few minutes ago). -OberRanks (talk) 19:54, 14 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I did put in a citation for all the ranks shown, which you deleted for some reason. Google has it online if you want to review it: http://books.google.com/books?id=Fs0Ajlnjl6AC page 316. This is an exhaustive compilation of military records from hundreds of sources and is used in the overwhelming majority of Wikipedia ACW bio articles. I am reverting your recent change. If you have conflicting alternative sources, you can add footnotes to show discrepancies, not simply remove reputable citations as you have done. Perhaps Robertson is using appointment dates versus dates of rank, but it is the latter we almost always use in Wikipedia articles. Also, since you want to delve into all this detail about ranks, permanent and otherwise--which we rarely do--the terms ACSA and PACS (spelled out anyway) are the official names for the Confederate regular army and the volunteer army (same reference, p. 66). Also, appointing someone to the ACSA does not require his state to be in the CSA at the time. (That was probably a back-dated DOR anyway.) Hal Jespersen (talk) 21:23, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I looked at the link you provided and couldn't find a rank history for Jackson; I also did not knowingly remove any citations but rather added a line at the bottom where I had gotten my data.

As far as the rank timeframes go, I don't possibly see how he could have had an appointment as a Confederate Colonel before Virginia joined the Confederacy. Robertson actually gives a blow by blow account of how he left VMI, went to Richmond, got appointed a Major, and then petitioned the governor to become a Colonel. Nowhere is there any mention of Jackson becoming a Confederate Colonel in March, a month before Virginia left the Union.

As well, Robertson very clearly tells us the brevet ranks were ordered after the Mexican war. he goes into detail how Jackson had heard nothing about them for several months and wrote to find out what was going on. JAckson then got word he was a Brevet Captain and Brevet Major followed a few days later with a date of rank back to the battle in the Mexican War.

Your other changes are much appreciated. I think we should work together to improve this new section. I ask that you not blanket revert but list specific problems that can be addressed. -OberRanks (talk) 21:34, 14 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Oops, after I said I was going to revert it, I forgot to do so and went on to other things. You did remove my citation (which was in the text as:


 * Perhaps you aren't familiar with Wikipedia footnotes. See WP:FN. I think some of these discrepancies are dates of appointment vs. date of rank. At a minimum, we always use the latter in Wikipedia, so you should be using both if you think dates of appointment are of interest. (They generally aren't unless there's some sequence of events like a battle intervening between the dates and one might wonder about when he actually had the new rank.) You could deal with both by using a tabular form, such as:


 * Or reverse the first two columns. Hal Jespersen (talk) 22:04, 14 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Excellent points all around. You are correct, I removed your citiation (by accident) and also dont know much about footnotes/endnotes/cit adding things like that.  I moved everything over here so this could beocme a kicking article that covers all aspects of his military career.  It can cover all the things you mentioned and we can add in the things from Robertson's book.  This is all I have time to do today, but I added back in your table at the bottom before my new edits to the page.  Here's to making this a great article. -OberRanks (talk) 22:08, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Conflicting Dates?
I'm bringing in this rank table to compare it to the one one the article now (from Robertson's book). A good point was made above that these rank dates are probably dates of rank vs dates of appointment. I think both should be listed (if possible) -OberRanks (talk) 22:05, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Jackson's specific rank and appointment history are as follows:


 * 18 June 1842: Cadet, United States Military Academy
 * 1 July 1846: Brevet Second Lieutenant of Artillery, United States Army
 * 3 March 1847: Second Lieutenant (Permanent), United States Army
 * 20 August 1847: First Lieutenant (Permanent), United States Army
 * 20 August 1847: Brevet Captain, United States Army
 * 13 September 1847: Brevet Major, United States Army
 * 24 September 1851: Accepts appointment at VMI, wears major's insignia on U.S. Army uniform
 * 29 February 1852: Resigns from the United States Army
 * 16 March 1861: Colonel, Army of Confederate States (ACSA), Infantry
 * 25 April 1861: Major of Topographic Engineers, Virginia Militia
 * 27 April 1861: Colonel, Provisional Army of Virginia
 * 17 June 1861: Brigadier General, PACS
 * 7 October 1861: Major General, PACS
 * 31 October 1861: Major of Artillery (Permanent), Confederate States Army
 * 10 October 1862: Lieutenant General, PACS

Date of rank vs. Date of appointment
According to the Official Records (Volume 2, Page 187), General Joseph E. Johnston recommended Jackson's promotion to the grade of Brigadier General in a letter dated 4 July 1861. Therefore, Jackson cannot have been a general in June, and his commission was obviously backdated. --Reibeisen (talk) 18:35, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Correct. But the article doesn´t say he was. The only mention is when it says Date of Rank which of course includes the possibility of being backdated; the confirmation being on August 28. So what`s your point? ...GELongstreet (talk) 18:55, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Separate Page
It is actually a pretty decent idea to have a separate page like this for a detailed, enumerated list of military service dates for a more prominent officer. The military history task force prefers to see dates of assignments, promotions, etc. integrated within the main text of the article, showing context, rather than being listed in a separate section or table. That's the reason that almost none of the ACW biographies have such lists. (I think J.E.B. Stuart and Nathan Bedford Forrest do have them, primarily because I have been too lazy to go fix them.) However, I guess that it would be difficult to object to a separate article such as this one. Therefore, it might be useful to get this article spruced up into a standardized format so that we could point editors to it for other generals if they choose to create one. I am headed off on a weeklong trip (to Vicksburg!) so I won't have the time to mess around with it for a while, but one suggestion I would make is that lists of this type should include not only promotions, but also command assignments. That Eicher reference I pointed out above has the detail. If you are not able to find it directly, go to http://books.google.com/ and search for "eicher high commands bluelight". Hal Jespersen (talk) 00:33, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Update (from the road): This page is now going too far away from a legitimate extension to the main article. It is adding a lot of narrative that conceptually overlaps the main article. A subpage of this type should be limited to bulleted lists, or preferably, tabular data. And now that I think of it, it should probably be renamed and organized as a WP:LIST article. Otherwise, someone will put a Merge tag in this article and it will eventually go away. Hal Jespersen (talk) 18:36, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I read the main page and it really doesn't go into exact specifics of what he was doing in the Mexican War, just a paragraph or so and stating he was in three battles and got two promotions. It also says nothing about his career at West Point except that he went there with a few other minor details.  I plan to continue as I have been except maybe in the Civil War part not go into overlapping info on his various campaigns.  I've also been the only one editing this article; I'm sure others can contribute and make it better.  A merge would require a proposal and concensus and that would draw in even more people which would be good. -OberRanks (talk) 22:24, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

You would save yourself time and reduce work for yourself if you simply edited notable narrative text into the main article now, rather than taking it on a detour of putting it into a separate article, getting a merge notice that disfigures both pages, and then figuring out what to merge and editing it all again. Leave the tabular info here as an example for other editors. Just my $0.02. Hal Jespersen (talk) 01:42, 16 March 2008 (UTC)