Customer Reviews

Stonewall Jackson's Book of Maxims

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Stonewall Jackson's Book of Maxims is inspiring to say the least. Thomas Jackson grew up an orphan in the mountains of West Virginia, had less than a fourth-grade education when he entered West Point and ended up being a General in the Army. Thought to be obsessive, eccentric, and unable to chat at social events, Jackson hid from the world a man that he hoped to be someday. That other Jackson comes screaming out like his famous bloodcurdling rebel yell. "You may be what ever you will resolve to be" is etched over an archway at the Virginia Military Institute where he was also a professor.
Thankfully his works were saved, lost, and found again, just like General Stonewall Jackson will be by you and your children's children through this book.

I really enjoyed this book. It is a great book for people that like StoneWall, or don't have a lot of time to read. ( This is a short read). StoneWalls maxims can be used today as well. This book, also gives us a better understanding of this great American Hero. ( How hard General Jackson tried to be a perfect man, shines through, with this book. One can only admire General Jackson all the more)

It is well worth the time spent reading it.

Jackson is a fascinating man who had some really serious problems and issues but who was determined to apply his faith in God and his absolute best efforts towards being the very best man he could be. The commentary in this book draws that point out very well.

The maxims are Jackson's self help book or memory aide to his efforts to overcoming his painful social awkwardness. In other words these are the things that Jackson felt he needed to work on badly enough to write down for future reference. As a piece of self revelation it is pretty profound.

The quotes in the book from Jackson's wife and associates show just how far he got in his quest to improve. He never totally overcame a lot of his problems (after all, who does?), but the effort he put into the attempt is breathtaking and, as I found, very inspiring. This is a short book and well worth reading and re-reading.

Stonewall Jackson was heavily influenced by the writings of Lord Chesterfield and began collecting maxims as part of his search for status as a gentleman before he became famous during the war. These maxims he wrote into a personal notebook scholars had assumed lost - until James Robertson discovered it in the Tulane University archives in the 1990s. Jackson's maxims for gentlemanly behavior are here reproduced for modern audiences and Civil War fans alike. Highly recommended.

If you're seeking military maxims with applications in business or personal life... along the line of Sun Tzu... you won't find them here.

Unlike Lord Chesterfield's "Letters to his Son", from which many of the maxims herein were extracted, and George Washington's hand-copied "Rules of Civility...", both of which represent selections offered up as a lesson plan for the edification of youth; Jackson's collection provides a portrait of the man himself, defined by those particular guidelines he selected as necessary to fill the gaps he perceived in his social upbringing.

Jackson's well known social awkwardness and reticence in public is clearly delineated by his choices. Anyone seeking to understand Jackson will benefit from this book. However, Dr. Roberston errs by delving deeper into Chesterfield's work, and others, in seeking to add supporting text to each maxim, rather than exploring why Jackson chose it. The treasure here is not the maxim, but Jackson's selection of it.

I loved reading this book! Anecdotes were used from a multiple of sources to describe the marvelous character of General Jackson. The material presented here can readily be applied to your own life today. It is the kind of book you can read and walk away refreshed in not only learning what it takes to be a great man and American hero, but a true man of God. It will be a stretch for most readers just to reach up and touch General Stonewall Jackson's shoelaces.

Robertson's follow up to his definitive biography of Jackson is a true gem. This little book is filled with thoughts and axioms that will guide any man wanting to become something better than what current pop-culture defines as a "man" - that poor feminized, sexless creature who cowers in the shadows of life while history passes him by. Buy it, read it several times and pass it on to your sons and grandsons. ~ Rick Williams, author/editor of "The Maxims of Robert E. Lee for Young Gentlemen" (Now available at Amazon.com! Lee's Maxims makes a great companion title to this book!)

Regardless of who actually originated the maxims that Stonewall collected, what is amazing to me is how steadfastly he followed every single one of these sayings incorporating them into his own character. Each of these sayings was a command, which he seemed to take to his soldier's heart, as if it had come from G-d Himself. I'm sure he wasn't thinking of publication when he collected these, nor was he submitting it for an academic grade, lying that every single phrase had originated from his gray (intensely) matter. He was an amazing gentleman, and please don't ever get rid of West Point. Some fine people come out of that institution.

Recommend reading after one has read about Jackson's life. While being interesting on its own, Maxims completes the picture of this extraordinary Christian.

In the 1850's, nearly a decade before the American Civil War, Major Thomas Jonathan Jackson kept a notebook of maxims that guided his life. Lost for decades, it emerged in the late 1980's, when historian James I. Robertson, Jr. found it in the archives of Tulane University while conducting research for his epic biography, Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend.
"Stonewall Jackson's Book of Maxims" collects the entirety of what Jackson wrote in his notebook, along with insights and commentary by Robertson, who provides possible origins to each maxim, and further quotes from other writers, most prominently Lord Chesterfield, whose letters to his son greatly influenced Jackson. This is a quick read, and historians and regular readers will be fascinated by it, as the reader gets new insight into the mind, and life, of one of the greatest military commanders of the Nineteenth Century.
Grade: A-