Stonewall Jackson biography banned!

May 2, 1864, Lexington, Kentucky, General Orders No. 39: “In obedience to orders from headquarters Department of Ohio, the circulation of a book entitled “Life, services, and campaigns of Stonewall Jackson, from official papers,  contemporary narratives and acquaintance, by a Virginia,” is interdicted with the limits of this command… Any one found with copies of such books in his possession, offering or intending them for sale, is either a traitor or one who loves money better than his country, and his right to the book is declared forfeited, and the same is ordered to be seized and destroyed… By command of Brigadier General Burbridge.”[1]

Interdicted means that the book was banned within the District of Kentucky, commanded by Brig. Gen. Stephen G. Burbridge (US). Anyone found trying to sell the book was to have his stock confiscated and the person was to be turned over to headquarters “to be dealt with for uttering treasonable publications.” The book in question was a brand-new biography on Stonewall Jackson by John Esten Cooke.[2]

A Virginia native, Cooke was a lawyer and writer prior to the war, and arguably one of the best-known Southern writers of the time. When the war came, Cooke enlisted in the Richmond Howitzers, fighting at the battle of First Manassas. He then began to write articles for Virginia newspapers. Cooke was a first cousin to JEB Stuart’s wife, and after a stint as a volunteer aide-de-camp, was promoted to lieutenant and officially assigned to join the famed cavalry commander’s staff. After Stuart’s death, Cooke served on the staff of Brig. Gen. William N. Pendleton, rising to the rank of major by the end of the war.

Cooke was already working on The Life of Stonewall Jackson, when Jackson was killed in May 1863. Cooke quickly finished upon Stonewall’s death, and the book appeared in print across the South by June 1863, published by Ayers and Wade.[3]

The book also made its way North. Later that year, New York publisher Charles B. Richardson released a copy of the Life of Stonewall Jackson. “Reprinted from advanced sheets of the Richmond edition,” the front matter read. It was actually pirated. The New York Times advertised that the new volume would be ready on September 10, and that 10,000 copies had been ordered. Strangely, the New York publisher listed the author as John M. Daniels.[4] Other advertisements for the book soon appeared in newspapers across the north: Burlington, Vermont, on September 22; Alexandria, Virginia, on September 23; Evansville, Indiana, on September 25; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Louisville, Kentucky, and Chicago, Illinois, on September 29.[5]

The popularity of the book soon raised the ire of Federal commanders first in Missouri in March 1864. Federal agents had discovered Confederates distributing “books, documents, and publications of various kinds, inculcating rebel views and sentiments.” One local distributor told a newspaper in St. Joseph that it was “almost impossible to supply the demand for the work [Life of Stonewall Jackson].”[6] But it was more than just the Life of Stonewall Jackson on the list. Other volumes included Pollard’s Southern History of the War; Official Reports of the Confederate Government; articles from the Metropolitan Record; Revelations-or the Companion of the New Gospel of Peace, according to Abraham; Book of the Prophet Stephen, son of Douglas; Abraham Africanus—the Mysteries of the White House; The Lincoln Catechism--or a Guide to Presidential Election of 1864, and Indestructible Organics by Marvinia T. Triga.[7] On March 31, the Federal Provost-Marshall in St. Louis ordered the seizure of Pollard’s Southern History of the War; Official Reports of the Confederate Government; the Life of Stonewall Jackson; and Morgan and His Men.[8]

Were there cases of seizures? In mid-May 1864, soldiers visited the publishing house and bookstore of Kelly and Piet in Baltimore, Maryland. Both were taken into custody, and books, such as The Life of Stonewall Jackson, along with photographs of Confederate generals, playing cards with Confederate generals, and notepaper bearing the Confederate flag were seized.[9] A search of the Federal Provost records would undoubtedly produce more examples.

Book censorship in the history of the United States is nothing new. The Puritans in Boston banned Thomas Morton’s New English Canaan not long after it was published in 1637 and then burned William Pynchon’s pamphlet The Meritorious Price of our Redemption in 1650. Fanny Hill (1748) by John Cleland was widely banned when it was released. Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe and The Impending Crisis of the South (1857) by Rowan Help were two books banned in the South in the 1850s.

Did banning The Life of Stonewall Jackson actually stop people in the North from acquiring and reading it? Not at all. Banning books almost always drives up interest and sale. The book was still advertised for sale in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Maysville, Kentucky.   The Courier-Journal in Louisville, one of those areas covered by Burbridge’s order, advertised in September 1864 that agents were being sought to distribute the books.[10]

Once the war ended, Cooke revised and reprinted the book. It was widely popular for decades after the war. Cooke would go on to write books on Robert E. Lee and the Stonewall brigade, as well as numerous novels. He died in 1886 and is buried in Clarke County, Virginia.  

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[1] Official Records, Vol.39, part 2, 7.

[2] Official Records, Vol.39, part 2, 7.

[3] Memphis Daily Appeal, June 9, 1863; Richmond Enquirer, July 21, 1863.

[4] The New York Times September 4, 1863.

[5] The Burlington Free Press, September 22, 1863; Alexandria Gazette, September 23, 1864; The Evansville Daily Journal, September 25, 1863; The Daily Milwaukee News, September 29, 1863; Chicago Tribune, September 29, 1863; The Louisville Daily Journal, September 29, 1863.

[6] The Morning Herald, April 1, 1864.

[7] Official Records, series 2, volume 2, 237.

[8] The Buffalo Commercial, April 1, 1864.

[9] The Selinsgrove Times-Tribune, May 27, 1864.

[10] Intelligencer Journal, September 15, 1864; Maysville Weekly Bulletin, June 9, 1864; The Courier-Journal, September 23, 1864.