From this humble grave on the green
Virginia hillside,
Jackson rises before the
American people as one of the mightiest figures of a mighty conflict.
When he died on May 10, 1863, in the little town of Guiney's Station, not far from the battlefield of
Chancellorsville, his remains were taken to
Richmond.
In the
Hall of Representatives the body lay in state while the sorrowing throngs passed by the open coffin in silence.
In the Military Institute at
Lexington, which
Jackson had left two years before as an obscure professor, the remains of the illustrious leader were under the charge of the cadets, until his burial in the quiet cemetery above the town.
The pure and noble words of
Lanier need no comment.
A few lines from an Englishman,
Colonel G. F. R. Henderson, declare
Jackson's life a message not for
America alone. ‘The hero who lies buried at
Lexington, in the
Valley of Virginia, belongs to a race that is not confined to a single continent; and to those who speak the same tongue, and in whose veins the same blood flows, his words come home like an echo of all that is noblest in their history: “What is life without honor?
Degradation is worse than death.
We must think of the living and of those who are to come after us, and see that by Gods blessing we transmit to them the freedom we have ourselves inherited” ’
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‘Stonewall’ Jackson: ‘still shine the words that miniature his deeds’ |
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