A HISTORY LESSON

We left Williamsburg this morning ahead of Hurricane Irene which is due in there on Saturday.  We saw some army vehicles in a convoy so I guess they're preparing for the weekend.  The signs were up to show the evacuation route and that's the way we went . . . inland and north.

We stopped at the Stonewall Jackson shrine which is the plantation office building where General Jackson spent the final six days of his life.  The office was one of several outbuildings on Thomas C. Chandler's plantation, "Fairfield".  

Today the office is the only plantation building remaining.  The Chandler house burned after the Civil War and its shell was dismantled in the early 1900s.  Established as an historic "shrine", the office underwent restorations in the 1920s and 1960s. 

The Plantation Office

The bed frame and the blanket at the foot of the bed are the same ones used to prepare the room for General Jackson by the Chandlers. 

The clock on the mantel is the only other original item placed in the room.  It was put there by the Chandler's young daughter, Lucy.

Jackson was mistakenly shot by his own men on the night of May 2, 1863, at the Battle of Chancellorsville.  Jackson's left arm was amputated at a field hospital near Chancellorsville early on May 3.  He was then taken on a 27 mile ambulance ride to the Chandler's outbuilding office which was also known as Guinea Station.

Three days later, despite the efforts of 5 doctors, Jackson began exibiting symptoms of pneumonia.  On Sunday, May 10, 1863 at 3:15 p.m. Jackson died.

His body is not buried at Guinea Station but there is a marker there commemorating his death.

General Thomas Jonathan Jackson, better known as Stonewall Jackson is buried at
Lexington, Virginia.