DATE: Monday, March 31, 1997                TAG: 9703290069

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY ROBERT FREIS, LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE 

                                            LENGTH:   91 lines

VA. PROF SAYS JACKSON WAS DIFFICULT TO GET TO KNOW

THOMAS J. JACKSON'S legacy stands like a stone wall covered by a thick moss of mythology.

The most famous soldier of his time, the Southern Civil War chieftain has come to be viewed as an oddball combination of military genius and religious mysticism.

Those persistent images have generated much fascination with Jackson, but they don't do him justice, according to James I. ``Bud'' Robertson Jr.

Robertson's new book, ``Stonewall Jackson: The Man, The Soldier, The Legend,'' seeks to strip away the layers of folklore.

``The man has been obscured. I discarded the legend as much as I could,'' says the author, a veteran Virginia Tech professor who has become a widely recognized and respected Civil War historian.

The revealing new book is substantial, at more than 1,000 pages, and has been chosen as a Book-of-the-Month Club selection.

``It's the best book that's ever been written about Jackson. And there have been quite a few,'' says Gary Gallagher, a Civil War author and Penn State University professor.

Gallagher read an advance copy of ``Stonewall Jackson'' and believes the book combines engaging writing and exhaustive research. Readers will get ``a much more fully textured picture'' of Jackson, he adds.

That was the intent, says Robertson.

``Stonewall Jackson'' is the latest manifestation of Robertson's long and accomplished career as a teacher, writer, editor, lecturer, commentator, administrator and archivist.

``I didn't want anybody influencing me. I was wearing horse-blinders, as if I were doing the first biography.''

Robertson's interest in Jackson dates from childhood and he's written about Stonewall many times before. Still, conjuring up the man for the new biography took seven years of research and writing.

``He was a difficult person to get to know. I had to work harder to get to the man,'' Robertson says.

Much has been written of Jackson's Civil War career as a commander of troops, his lightning marches, hammer blows and grim determination. His mid-war death during the Battle of Chancellorsville came to symbolize the rebel nation's Roman-candle existence.

Less attention has focused on Jackson's earlier life. Robertson spackles the historical record's cracks by providing rich - and heart-rending - story telling.

``Every time he touched something, he lost it,'' Robertson says.

Born in 1824, raised on the rude frontier of Western Virginia, orphaned at age 7, Jackson's life was tortured by a series of deaths or separations involving family members and intimates.

To compensate for his personal losses and lack of opportunity, Jackson formed an iron self-will, best illustrated by his favorite aphorism, ``You may be whatever you resolve to be.''

Determination enabled Jackson to obtain an education, a career as a U.S. Army officer and a professorship at VMI. In Lexington, Jackson became a respected and prosperous small-town burgher.

There he would have preferred to have lived out his life in comfortable obscurity. But the war intruded, a conflict that gave the shy professor his immortal nickname of Stonewall.

Combat transformed Jackson into a relentless warrior. Yet the book identifies Jackson's conversion to Christianity as his life's most profound change. Spirituality helped him overcome sorrow.

``Today Jackson would be considered a fanatic. That says something about our time, not his,'' Robertson says.

Data for the book came from archives and collections from across the country. The author took what Robertson calls a ``vacuum-cleaner'' approach to research, making stacks of photocopies and reading reams of microfilm.

Robertson said the work to uncover nuggets about Jackson was like opening presents on Christmas morning. He credits his wife, Libba, with helping him accomplish the research, and dedicates the book to her.

Robertson's primary historical scoop involves Jackson's famous last words: ``Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.''

The author says the grove and stream Jackson harkened back to on his deathbed were memories of his childhood on the West Fork River at a place called Jackson's Mill, in what is now West Virginia.

As is his custom, Robertson cataloged the book's myriad factoids on 5-by-8-inch note cards and wrote the first draft on legal paper with a No. 2 pencil.

He says writing by hand promotes brevity and limits the number of adjectives and adverbs.

He also makes no apology for being old-fashioned. ``Only by learning from the past,'' he says, ``can you get a sense of the future.'' MEMO: ``Stonewall Jackson: The Man, The Soldier, The Legend,'' by James

I. Robertson Jr., Macmillan USA, $40. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

James I. Robertson Jr.

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