Photographs; maps

Includes bibliographical references.

Finalist for the national book critics circle award, the epic New York times bestselling account of how the civil war General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson became a great and tragic American Hero, Stonewall Jackson has long been a figure of legend and romance. As much as any person in the Confederate pantheon, even Robert E. Lee, he embodies the romantic Southern notion of the virtuous lost cause. Jackson is also considered, without argument, one of our country's greatest military figures. In April 1862 Jackson was merely another Confederate general in an army fighting for what seemed to be an increasingly desperate cause. By June he had engineered perhaps the greatest military campaign in American history and was one of the most famous men in the Western world. Jackson's strategic innovations shattered the conventional wisdom of how war was waged; he was so far ahead of his time that his techniques would be studied generations in the future. Rebel Yell is "a narrative vivid with detail and insight" (The Wall Street Journal) and is rich with battle lore, biographical detail, and intense conflict between historical figures. Gwynne delves deep into Jackson's private life and traces his brilliant twenty-four-month career in the Civil War, the period that encompasses his rise from obscurity to fame and legend; his stunning effect on the course of the war itself; and his tragic death, which caused both North and South to grieve the loss of a remarkable American hero. Book jacket.