This is the very first time that we have encountered such entertainingly expressed yet mercilessly critical opposition to Thomas Jackson as a person. The article misses no opportunity to belittle his intellect and character. It stands out in all our collection as the lone example of a memorable masterpiece of character assassination seen from the perspective of a different side of Thomas Jackson that we have been accustomed to reading.

We see that this piece comes from the pen of the editor of the Reading Eagle, the local newspaper that was the political rival of the one in which TJ was commonly published. But as well as making us smile at this distance of time, is also gives us an opportunity to call to mind that TJ’s views were by no means universally popular locally.

Even the other major Reading newspaper took him to task at times for his harsh criticisms of aspects of the American life style.  (See editorial in Reading Times NP 1859-02-22).

This unexpected attack from another perspective stimulated The Ambassadors to reconsider how they believed Thomas Jackson was viewed in his community during his lifetime

THOMAS JACKSON’S CHARCTER

There are many places in these letters and newspaper reports where Thomas Jackson is spoken of by others in most favorable terms. (Most powerfully in the reports of his funeral where prominent black citizens were chosen to put flowers on his coffin in recognition of his services to colored people and his support for the abolition of slavery.)

However, this article reminds us that he also had his enemies. He comes across as an uncompromising, polarizing figure always pushing his own political position and displaying very little tolerance for others who did not share his views. Our guess is that he may have been stern, relatively humorless and prickly man who was difficult to live with.

Additionally, he would likely have been very unpopular with families whose relatives were actively fighting while he himself avoiding putting himself at risk by not volunteering to fight yet he became rich selling ropes to the war effort.

With that in mind, here are some of the barbs and jabs that we detect in the Reading Eagle editorial.

Thomas Jackson is made to seem infantile by the constant reference to him named as the child-like “Tommy”.

Also it is implied by constantly putting his name first that Thomas Jackson considers himself superior to one of the most prominent politicians and newspaper editors in the land.

“The sword that Tommy didn’t use during the war, leaping from its scabbard to inflict summary punishment ” is a sarcastic reference to the fact that neither Thomas Jackson (nor his sons) ever took up arms and fought in the civil war while he was constantly criticizing it. (He rationalizes that decision somewhat unconvincingly in one of his letters. See Below)

We speculate that, at this time of his life, Thomas Jackson was overweight so the suggestion of him being involved in a foot race would simply be to create a comic image at this expense.

The reference at the end to the dispute “ . . shaking the Times office . .” reflects that competition between the two Reading newspapers.

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In addition, here is a more detailed, thoroughly researched piece that adds much to the reader’s interpretation of this Reading Eagle article.

“According to the notes field for The Reading Times and Dispatch in Chronicling America (https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026343/), the paper was Republican leaning. Another version of The Daily Eagle (https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026345/) was theReading Gazette and Democrat. Having “Democrat” in its name doesn’t necessarily mean it was a Democratic newspaper, but given the tone of the letter John provided us, it’s a good bet that the Daily Eagle was associated with Democratic political powers. I know it is very difficult to imagine today that media outlets could be considered partisan (insert note of sarcasm there), but 19^th century newspapers typically allied openly with one political party or another. Republicans were generally more progressive on civil rights issues than Democrats at that time, which is likely why the Times and Dispatch would report favorably on Jackson’s letter to Horace Greeley, and why the Daily Eagle would poop on TJ.

At the time Jackson wrote to Greeley, the U.S. Congress was debating the Third Enforcement Act, better known as the Ku Klux Klan Act (https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1851-1900/hh_1871_04_20_KKK_Act/), which was meant to provide power to enforce the 14^thAmendment against groups like the KKK that engaged in often brutal activities against African Americans contrary to their rights of citizenship (which the recent 14^th Amendment had guaranteed). The Congress passed the act on April 20, 1871, and President Ulysses S. Grant signed it into law the same day. So questions of Reconstruction, civil rights, the KKK, etc. would have been very much in the news when Jackson wrote to Greeley.

The “Forney” to whom the Daily Eagle editor refers is most likely John W. Forney (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Weiss_Forney), a newspaper publisher from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who had been a Democrat before the war and switched to the Republican Party during it. He was in Washington, D.C. for most of the 1860s serving in administrative positions for the U.S. Congress and publishing the Chronicle in D.C. He returned to Pennsylvania in 1871 to serve for one year as the collector at the port of Philadelphia.”

TJ’s own explanation about why he did not fight(From his letter TJ 1863-04-06_page 7)

You may ask if I or my sons turned out to defend our property then?.  I tell you no, and why.  A few days before 200 fine stout hardy and brave black men went from Philadelphia to Harrisburg and offered their services for state defence. Many of the colored men of Reading and other parts of Penn^aoffered also.  But our Republican governor refused them all.  This he did to conciliate the copperheads, and pamper the prejudice of the proslavery democracy and the rebels who were coming upon us.  He refused the negroes a chance to fight the invaders fairly although it was well known that they were kidnapping all the negroes they could catch,men, women and children, tying them in pairs each side along a rope with

p 8 a couple of horses hitched on to the end of it, and thus dragging free born Pennsylvanians in regular slave coffles off to southern bondage.  This I knew, because the Federal cavelry had recaptured some of these “coffles” of kidnapped negeroes and escorted them back to safe places and many of the poor fugitives, thus ruthlessly dragged from their homes and resaved had managed to make their way to Reading.  But because they were “niggers” they were not allowed to aid in driving out the enemy & recovering possession of the homes which many of them owned as freeholders.  If I ever do lose my life in war let it be given to the cause of true freedom, of unalloyed liberty, and not for such questionable principles as now prevail here, north and south.  We are loud in praise of popular soverignty.  But the fact is we have been collectively a nation of 26 millions of soverigns with less than 5 millions of down trodden subjects.  More than 5 soverigns to 1 subjects.  I do not call that popular soverignty.  It is petty soverignty.  It is splitting prerogatives with a vengence.