ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 29, 1996 TAG: 9604290076
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SAN MARCOS, TEXAS
SOURCE: Associated Press
ASTRONOMER DON OLSON worked with Civil War historians to uncover Confederate Gen. Thomas ``Stonewall'' Jackson's strategy in his final battle.
Don Olson's cluttered office is filled with computer programs, astronomical tables and accounts of battles and other historic events. So are his thoughts.
The Southwest Texas State University astronomer likes to answer old questions with modern techniques.
``I know more astronomy than the historians. The historians know more history than I do. We come together, share our knowledge, and we both learn things from it,'' said Olson, a physics professor and history buff.
If the weather cooperates, the latest findings of Olson and his colleagues should be on display over Virginia on Thursday night.
They have determined that the moon will appear exactly as it did 133 years ago, when Confederate Gen. Thomas ``Stonewall'' Jackson was mortally wounded by his own troops during the battle at Chancellorsville.
Olson, fellow Southwest Texas State astronomer Russell Doescher and writer Laurie Jasinski described the night in an article for the latest issue of Blue & Gray Magazine.
With less than two hours of daylight remaining, Jackson's troops had launched a flank attack that routed Union soldiers.
``The moon rose 41 minutes before the sun went down. It was never dark,'' Olson said. ``The sky was clear that night, and Jackson could have seen the moon and known it would enable him to press the battle into the night with sufficient illumination.''
Jackson and some aides rode ahead of his lines that evening to scout Union positions. As they rode back, a group of North Carolina troops on the lookout for Union cavalry patrols opened fire. Jackson was hit. He died May10.
``I believe that it might be legitimately called one of the turning points in American history,'' said Robert K. Krick, chief historian at the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park and a Jackson author.
``The Civil War was a watershed event in the nation's history, and the loss of Jackson was one of the two or three most dramatic turning points in the war,'' he said.
Jackson and Gen. Robert E. Lee ``had been remarkably successful and all but unbeatable,'' Krick said. ``The South lost that immensely valuable military asset that Jackson was, and the war took another turn.''
The story of what Olson calls Jackson's ``fatal full moon'' is the latest in a series of studies he and Doescher have conducted.
Utilizing astronomical calculations and computers, they can determine how the night sky appeared at a precise moment over an event. Among their research projects, they found that:
* Defense lawyer Abe Lincoln was, indeed, being honest when he used an almanac to discredit a prosecution witness. The witness claimed the light of a full moon enabled him to see a fatal beating. But the moon had almost dropped from view when the crime occurred at 11 p.m. on Aug. 29, 1857.
* An uncommonly low tide nearly foiled the Boston Tea Party, leaving the patriots to dump tea into a harbor that was little more than a mudflat on the evening of Dec. 16, 1773.
* An unusually low, southeastern moonrise over Boston on April 18, 1775, cloaked Paul Revere in darkness as he rowed past a British warship toward Charlestown and his famous ride.
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Don Olson uses his astronomical know-how to solveby CNBhistory's mysteries.|