Stonewall ministers to save souls

In 1841, two teenage boys, Thaddeus Moore and his companion, Tom, watched a slave funeral with curiosity and, one said later, a sense of sadness as the coffin was carried to the grave.

Although neither boy knew the person about to be buried, young Tom seemed particularly saddened by what he saw — not just by the mournful procession, but by the plight of the black race. Moore would later write in his journal that Tom “seemed to be sorry for the race.”

“They should be free and have a chance,” Tom had said. Tom also told Thaddeus that his close friend Joe Lightburn had once said that the slaves “should be taught to read so they could read the Bible.” Tom said he thought so, too. Thaddeus replied that he would be well-advised “not to make such views known.”

These boys’ lives, connected during their youth, would diverge in later years. Thaddeus Moore died in Clarksburg, Va. (West Virginia today) in 1859.

Joe Lightburn would, like young Tom, answer his country’s call for service during the Civil War. However, the two would choose different loyalties. Lightburn would fight for the Union and, after the war, become a Baptist pastor. Tom would not survive the war, but his name would become immortal. He was Confederate Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson.

Mysterious names

Lightburn and Jackson shared not only military careers, but also a passion for reaching others with the Gospel. While Lightburn’s ministry would not begin until after Appomattox, Jackson’s most important ministry took place during the six years leading up to the war.

It is a strange paradox — Lightburn fought for the Union, survived the war and later ministered to a white congregation; Jackson fought for the Confederacy, did not survive the war, but ministered primarily to blacks.

Jackson’s belief that blacks should be taught to read so they could read the Bible would come to full fruition in 1855, 150 years ago this year. He began a “Colored Sabbath-school” in the fall of 1855 in Lexington, Va.

Concerned over the lack of opportunities for Lexington blacks to receive religious instruction, Jackson had discussed his plans with Margaret “Maggie” Junkin. Junkin was Jackson’s sister-in-law by his first marriage, to Elinor “Ellie” Junkin, and the daughter of a prominent Presbyterian clergyman. Ellie had died, along with their stillborn son, the previous year.

As Jackson was one of the founding members of the Rockbridge Bible Society and a member of its Board of Managers, he took on the responsibility of fundraising for the printing of Gospel literature. On one occasion, Jackson brought in an unusually generous amount of offerings. In addition to the regular contributors, he had penciled in additional names at the bottom of his solicitation list.

When fellow society members inquired about the added names, Jackson replied: “They are the militia. … I deemed it best to go beyond the limits of our own church.” However, most of the additional names were of free blacks in Lexington.

Children of God

Some historians have noted that it was during his work with the Bible Society that Jackson first became aware of the need to reach slaves and the free blacks in and around the peaceful Shenandoah Valley community of Lexington.

Robert Lewis Dabney, a Presbyterian theologian and author of an 1866 Jackson biography, would write of Jackson’s efforts among “the free blacks of the quarters, all of whom he had visited in their humble dwellings, and encouraged to give a pittance of their earnings to print Bibles.”

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