Searching for Stonewall Jackson, Ben Cleary
Searching for Stonewall Jackson, Ben Cleary
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Searching for Stonewall Jackson
A Quest for Legacy in a Divided America

Author: Ben Cleary

Narrator: Ben Cleary

Unabridged: 11 hr 50 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Twelve

Published: 07/16/2019

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

Historian Ben Cleary takes readers beyond the legend of Stonewall Jackson and directly onto the Civil War battlefields on which he fought, and where a country once again finds itself at a crossroads.
Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson was the embodiment of Southern contradictions. He was a slave owner who fought and died, at least in part, to perpetuate slavery, yet he founded an African-American Sunday School and personally taught classes for almost a decade. For all his sternness and rigidity, Jackson was a deeply thoughtful and incredibly intelligent man. But his reputation and mythic status, then and now, was due to more than combat success. In a deeply religious age, he was revered for a piety that was far beyond the norm. How did one man meld his religion with the institution of slavery? How did he reconcile it with the business of killing, at which he so excelled?
In SEARCHING FOR STONEWALL JACKSON, historian Ben Cleary examines not only Jackson's life, but his own, contemplating what it means to be a white Southerner in the 21st century. Now, as statues commemorating the Civil War are toppled and Confederate flags come down, Cleary walks the famous battlefields, following in the footsteps of his subject as he questions the legacy of Stonewall Jackson and the South's Lost Cause at a time when the contentions of politics, civil rights, and social justice are at a fever pitch.
Combining nuanced, authoritative research with deeply personal stories of life in the modern American South, SEARCHING FOR STONEWALL JACKSON is a thrilling, vivid portrait of a soldier, a war, and a country still contending with its past.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Henry on August 05, 2019

To read a history book about the Southern side of the Civil War is challenging nowadays. To read a standard history book, a recitation of facts that happened in timely order, many years ago, can itself be a challenge. Ben Cleary has created a book that beats it. For those who avoid history books bec......more

Goodreads review by Porter on September 07, 2019

I was listening to this book through the library. It is not bad, but it just is not for me. The book is about the a White Southerner (Cleary) as he learns more about the Southern Icon---Stonewall Jackson. Cleary does not approach the subject as a novice, he's been writing about Jackson for years, bu......more

Goodreads review by Joseph on December 30, 2020

More of a modern day travelogue than a narrative history volume, this book does not disappoint. It reminds me very much of the late, great Tony Horwitz's works. If you never read Confederates in the Attic or Spying on the South, consider it. Strongly consider it. Anyway, this is most likely my final......more

Goodreads review by Cat on November 25, 2020

I’m not a huge history buff; curiosity attracted me to this book more than anything else. How, in these times of ultra-sensitivity, could a (brace yourself and excuse me of my crassness here) white man, yes, a Caucasian Homo sapiens, dare to put pen to paper and discuss at great length such a vile s......more

Goodreads review by Angus on February 04, 2020

While sometimes light on the details of Jackson’s life, and mixed with the author’s modern day “memoir” and observations about the present which were usually moderately jarring, I did enjoy the book overall. It seemed to include a few tidbits I don’t recall from other biographies I’ve read and I als......more


Quotes

"Ben Cleary's decades-long fascination with the Civil War was stoked in part by his awareness that Stonewall Jackson and his soldiers had marched past the site of Cleary's Virginia home in 1862. Intrigued by Jackson's military genius and baffling personality, he set forth on a quest to understand both and to probe the meaning of the war by following in Jackson's footsteps. Civil War experts and neophytes alike will find the results of his quest to be a rewarding reading experience."—James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Battle Cry of Freedom

"It takes a particular kind of courage to launch an admiring portrait of a Confederate icon into today's political climate. Happily, Ben Cleary's SEARCHING FOR STONEWALL JACKSON is thoughtful, nuanced, and sensitive to the political realities, then and now."—John Strausbaugh, award-winning author of Victory City and City of Sedition

"In Searching for Stonewall Jackson, historian Ben Cleary proves that a complicated past is always more fascinating and thought-provoking than one without controversy. Thomas Jonathan Jackson was an American both remarkable and tragic: A West Point graduate, a Mexican War hero, and a deeply religious slave owner who led Confederate armies in one victory after another. And while there are those today who would prefer to erase all evidence of Jackson's existence, Cleary's absorbing personal journey into the Southern general's legacy shows us that Jackson is as firmly fixed in our historical consciousness as he and his Virginians were at Bull Run some 158 years ago. Like it or not."—p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial}Mark Lee Gardner, award-winning author of Rough Riders: Theodore Roosevelt, His Cowboy Regiment, and the Immortal Charge Up San Juan Hill

"More than a century and half after its end, the Civil War and its legacy continues to arouse passionate debate. How today's Americans memorialize our nation's bloodiest conflict have caused heated disagreements and even violent confrontations. In Searching for Stonewall Jackson, Ben Cleary revisits those places where one the war's most famous warriors fought his battles and earned his renown. Along the way, the author offers us a finely written, thoughtful, and needed portrait of both that terrible struggle and its controversial meaning. It is a journey worth taking for contemporary Americans who are mindful of our shared past."—p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial; color: #424242}span.s1 {color: #2c2c2c}Jeffry D. Wert, author, A Glorious Army: Robert E. Lee's Triumph 1862-1863

"Ben Cleary not only knows history, he feels it. His new book is rife with fresh details on General Jackson's campaigns, resulting in a strikingly original take on the Confederate States Army -- and the modern South. Both are vividly real in Searching for Stonewall Jackson."—p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 17.0px; font: 14.7px Arial; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; background-color: #ffffff}span.s1 {font-kerning: none}Julie M. Fenster, bestselling author of Jefferson's America

"Cleary provides a thoughtful, accessible look into both Jackson and the continued relevance of the Civil War."—Publishers Weekly

"Cleary...is both sensitive and sensible, and readers along the way will learn both of Jackson's gallantry and the essential wrongness of the enterprise for which he died. An honest, searching book sure to tread on the toes of supremacists and iconoclasts alike."—Kirkus

"Part biography, military history, a psychological exercise and an endeavor to discover the many faceted characteristics of [Jackson]...[A] colorful tapestry. Cleary masterfully combines historic narratives with his own perspective...walking the paths and battlefields trod a century and a half earlier by the Confederate general."—li.li1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 17.0px; font: 14.7px Times; color: #323130; -webkit-text-stroke: #323130}span.s1 {font-kerning: none}ul.ul1 {list-style-type: disc}Wilford Kale, Virginia Gazette