Those of you who didn't long ago abandon Facebook will know its present-day algorithm is an oddity. You'll never see updates from your family or friends, but if you linger for a second too long on a dog rescue photo, your feed will then become inundated with Fidos in need of a home.
Such was the case for me this week with Stonewall Jackson. Now, living in Virginia, it's pretty common to see Civil War history float across my feed, but I'll admit I stopped scrolling to inspect a photo posted to a Facebook historical group I've never joined.
The photo was of a Stonewall Jackson monument, and, at first, I thought it would be yet another reminder of how the anti-history, anti-knowledge, and brutally ignorant left vandalized and tore down every Confederate statue they could back in 2020. Richmond's historic Monument Avenue is now one, long boulevard of urban blight; the Left loves blight.
SEE ALSO: As America Celebrates Its 250th Birthday, Abigail Spanberger Is Busy Erasing Virginia's History (VIP)
But, the photo I lingered on wasn't that at all. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that a statue of Stonewall remains standing somewhere in Virginia, albeit behind a fence at his gravesite in Lexington, home of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI). And the lemons that had been strewn about the monument lawn weren't aggressively thrown at him by blue-haired weirdos, but were left as a sign of respect.
I wasn't able to embed the actual photo, but these are good replacements.
Okay, so about those lemons. I had to know.
Apparently, a legend has grown around Jackson about him loving lemons so much that he'd eat them before, during, and after battles. And, like most legends, no one's really sure at this point what's truth and what's fiction. Here's an account by early Jackson biographer Henry K. Douglas from his memoir, I Rode With Stonewall:
[On June 27, 1862, during the battle of Gaines Mill] General Jackson mounted…and leaving his position moved more to the front. At that moment someone handed him a lemon – a fruit of which he was especially fond. Immediately a small piece was bitten out of it and slowly and unsparingly he began to extract the flavor and its juice. From that moment until darkness ended the battle, that lemon scarcely left his lips except to used as a baton to emphasize an order. He listened to Yankee shout or Rebel yell, to the sound of musketry advancing or receding, to all the signs of promise or apprehension, but he never for an instant lost his interest in that lemon and even spoke of its excellence. His face, nevertheless, was calm and granite-like. His blue eye was restful and cold, except when now and then it gave, for a moment, an ominous flash. His right hand lay open and flat on his thigh, but now and then was raised into the air as was his habit…. But the lemon was not abandoned.
I do have questions about the supply of lemons that would have been available to General Jackson at the time, but I'm willing to overlook those and completely buy into the lemon legend.
VMI, an institution with which Jackson had a close relationship despite not having attended it, puts a more realistic spin on things:
While we do know of three stories of Jackson enjoying a lemon during the war, there is no evidence that he preferred that fruit to any other. In one account by Henry Kydd Douglas, Jackson ate a lemon during the encounter at Gaines’ Mill. A VMI colleague, Colonel Raleigh E. Colston, also wrote that Jackson enjoyed a lemon during Gaines’ Mill. The third account also centered on Gaines’ Mill, was left by a soldier under J.E.B. Stuart. The soldier wrote that Jackson sucked on a lemon during the battle.
If we back up a bit, the reason people were posting about Stonewall Jackson (and lemons) this week was because Tuesday was the 165th anniversary of the First Battle of Bull Run. It was there, of course, that Thomas J. Jackson earned the nickname that would follow him into the history books: “Stonewall.”
So, much like people leave stones and coins on the graves of our fallen veterans, visitors leave lemons for Stonewall Jackson – a quirky little tribute that has managed to keep both a legend and a small piece of history alive.
And, I suppose, we should end by saying bravo to the BLM rioters who never had the cojones (or dare we say "lemons"?) to storm the VMI campus and desecrate this monument. Thanks to that rare display of restraint – or shall we call it cowardice? – Stonewall is still standing and enjoying his favorite fruit.
