The Legends of the West Point Class of 1846

Thomas Jonathan Jackson is one of the most famous generals of the Civil War, but many of the people he continues to fascinate probably don’t remember his whole name. That’s because Jackson earned his famous “Stonewall” moniker at the First Battle of Manassas or Bull Run, when Brigadier-General Bee told his brigade to rally behind Jackson, whose men were standing like a stone wall. Ironically, it’s still unclear whether that was a compliment for standing strong or an insult for not moving his brigade, but the nickname stuck for the brigade and the general itself.

Jackson would only enhance his legend over the next two years, first leading his army on one of the most incredible campaigns of the war in the Shenandoah Valley in 1862.. Known as the Valley Campaign, Jackson kept 3 Union armies occupied north of Richmond with less than 1/3 of the men, marching his army up and down the Valley 650 miles in three months. The impressive feat helped his men earn the nickname “foot cavalry.”

He is equally known for his famous flank march and attack at Chancellorsville on May 2, 1863, which completely surprised the Army of the Potomac’s XI Corps and rolled the Union line up. The attack would end up winning the battle for the Confederates, who were outnumbered by nearly 50,000 men at Chancellorsville. As fate would have it, Jackson was mortally wounded at the height of what may have been his finest hour, depriving the Confederacy of one of its best generals. Many still wonder how the outcome of Gettysburg or the Civil War itself may have changed if Jackson had lived.

In 1861, McClellan was looked upon as a hero and even possibly a savior. Dubbed “The Young Napoleon”, the 35 year old had been a prodigy at West Point, finishing in second place in the Academy’s most famous class, the Class of 1846. After earning praise for his service in the Mexican-American War, McClellan had a short but successful career in the railroad industry and had been a foreign observer at the siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War. At the outbreak of the Civil War, there was no question that McClellan was one of the brightest and most experienced of the North’s generals.

Ultimately, of course, McClellan went from hero to goat, at least in the eyes of President Lincoln, who famously wrote that McClellan “has the slows”. It was a sharp critique of McClellan’s cautious movements, but McClellan was also faulted for conservative battlefield leadership in the Peninsula Campaign and at Antietam. McClellan also constantly overestimated his opponent’s manpower, at times thinking the Confederates had double his Army of the Potomac when the exact opposite was the case. It was after Antietam and his bickering with the War Department over why he wasn’t chasing Lee’s battered Army of Northern Virginia that Lincoln finally sacked him, effectively ending his Civil War career.

Pickett’s reputation for bravery extended into the early years of the Civil War, to the extent that former West Point classmate George McClellan wrote, “Perhaps there is no doubt that he was the best infantry soldier developed on either side during the Civil War.” A native Virginian, the impeccably styled Pickett represented all of the antebellum South’s most cherished traits, and as such he was a “beau-ideal” Confederate soldier.

After proving himself a capable brigadier during the Peninsula Campaign, during which he was wounded and forced to recuperate, Pickett was given command of a division in Longstreet’s corps of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, putting him in position for a rendez-vous with destiny. Today Pickett is best remembered for the charge that has taken his name and is now remembered as the most famous assault of the Civil War. Pickett’s division was so decimated by the charge that when Lee asked him to reform his division in case of a Union counterattack, Pickett is alleged to have responded, “I have no division!”