On the morning of May 10, 1863, one hundred and fifty years ago today, the weather around Guiney Station, Virginia was warm and pleasant. But inside a small, white frame building on the Fairfield plantation, the atmosphere was gloomy. Lying in a four-poster bed, Lt. Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson was near death after being accidentally shot by his own men eight days earlier. Jackson had survived the wounding and subsequent amputation of his left arm only to struggle against a pneumonia that developed four days after the operation.
That morning, the doctors caring for Jackson realized he would not survive the day. They informed his wife, Anna, who then relayed the news to her husband. “I shall be an infinite gainer to be translated,” Jackson replied after comprehending his mortality; followed later by: “It is the Lord’s Day. My wish is fulfilled. I have always wanted to die on Sunday.”
As the morning and afternoon hours slowly passed, Jackson drifted in and out of delirium and consciousness. Long periods of silence were interrupted by abrupt moments of the general barking out orders to staff members on some past battlefield. By 2:30 p.m., his vocalizations had become only mumblings of disconnected words. Then, at some point, “with an expression as if of relief,” he clearly states: “Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.”
Jackson would speak no more as his breathing became increasingly shallow over the ensuing minutes. With Anna by his bed, pleading with the doctors to find some way to save her husband, Jackson opened his eyes one last time and stared into her tearful face. Then, slowly closing his eyes again, Stonewall Jackson’s “spirit passed from earth to the God who gave it” at 3:15 p.m. on Sunday, May 10, 1863.
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