(Photo credit: Stonewall Jackson Monument, Manassas Battlefield Park, by Dougie Bicket)

Easily the most prominent “man on a horse” statue at Virginia’s Manassas National Battlefield Park is that of Confederate Gen. Thomas Jackson, which stands near the visitor center. Manassas (aka Bull Run) was the battle that gave Jackson the nickname “Stonewall,” so it’s perhaps not surprising that there’s now a monument to the man, inscribed with the words supposedly used to describe him in the heat of battle: “There stands Jackson like a stone wall.” (It’s a phrase attributed to South Carolina Brigadier General Bernard Bee, who has his own, much smaller, monument close by.) What did surprise me, however, was the relative youth of the sculpture. I’d expected it to have been around since the 1890s or earlier, but it turns out it’s only graced the battlefield since 1940. 

That’s one thing to consider. Another is that, as tall and proud as it stands—nearly 20 feet high on its plinth—the monument is almost completely unrepresentative of the man it’s supposed to honor. 

A ranger who works at Manassas once told me how, when she first got the job there, she told a colleague at another park where she was going and the response she got was, “Oh, so you’re going to the park with the Superman statue.” This really isn’t too far off the mark. If you can imagine what a Herculean superhero would look like in a modern comic book set in the Civil War, he would likely look something like this. 

The bronze Jackson that towers over everyone and every non-tree object at Manassas is erect, square-jawed (under his square beard) and in possession of—I kid you not—huge, bulging biceps, abs, quadriceps, and calf muscles. This seems odd, given that the figure is not in fact represented as being buck naked, but is rather clad in a heavy wool uniform that would in reality have obscured the definition of even the most cut bodybuilder. The figure also, incongruously, sports a flowing cape, even though First Manassas was fought at the height of summer and heavy capes were likely not on the dress list that day. Now it is true that the real Stonewall Jackson was quite big for his time—approximately 6 feet tall and 175 pounds in weight—but for his body to have approximated this representation he would probably have had to add a few extra inches in height and Schwarzeneggeresque levels of muscle. 

Another red flag indicating something is way off with this depiction is the magnificent steed our Super-Jackson sits atop. The real Jackson’s horse, Little Sorrel, was famously undersized. At 14 hands high, or about 50 inches, it was, according to a Virginia Tech history professor once interviewed on Virginia Public Radio, “so small in stature that when Jackson’s legs extended from the saddle, the General’s huge feet were but inches from the ground.” Yet the bronze horse on which this Jackson is seated, well, freaking massive.

There is no way this monument is anywhere within shouting distance of a genuine representation of Jackson or his horse. Which seems strange because this is the Civil War we’re talking about. It’s not like we’re reimagining some distant figure in history. There are many extant photographs showing us exactly what Jackson looked like (and even what Little Sorrel looked like). 

So what led to this grotesquely reimagined depiction of Jackson actually getting cast in bronze at the end of the 1930s? The answer may lie in two big cultural events that captivated America at that time. One was the publication of Margaret Mitchell’s book Gone With the Wind, with its gloriously romanticized (and deeply flawed) depiction of the antebellum South. (The movie version quickly followed). The other was the publication of the first Superman comic book. People sometimes forget just how far back Superman goes, but DC Comics’ first super-superhero was introduced to the world in June 1938, and it rapidly swept America, firing the imagination of boys and men alike. Perhaps, as our ranger had suggested, the statue’s resemblance to the man from Krypton was more than mere coincidence. 

As odd as it seems, the creator of this “monument,” a New York sculptor named Joseph Pollia, seemed inspired to create a vision not of a real person but rather an idealized, larger-than-life super-general. But why did he do this? Was he trying to perpetuate a culturally distorted representation of a past that would give segregationists solace and comfort at a time of change and uncertainty? Did he sympathize with those sections of late-1930s Southern society desperate to recapture a glorified, reconstructed, and whitewashed vision of their white ancestors’ struggle? Or did he just think superheroes looked cool? Whichever way you look at it, the resulting monument is still in situ. It very much competes for attention with the Patriots Monument a few yards away, and since it stands closer to the visitor center it’s usually the first thing most visitors see when they step outside. 

When it comes to perpetuating myths about the glorious South, the National Park Service, which has run Manassas since 1940, is not blameless. The Park Service’s battlefield sites had, from their earliest days of historic interpretation right up to the 1990s, maintained a “both sides” approach to the Civil War, giving the Confederate perspective more-or-less equal weight to that of the North. In the process, slavery and the African-American point of view got systematically downplayed or outright ignored. 

Now, I know the NPS is loath to get into the debate about removing statues and memorials, and there are very good reasons for them to hold to that position. Still, this is a tough one. It’s worth noting that the monument has been vandalized at least three times in recent years—including once on the 4^th of July—and I wouldn’t be surprised if it got hit again at some point. Not that I’d ever advocate vandalism on public property, of course; it’s just an observation. Anyway, at present there are no plans to take it down or move it, so visitors to Manassas will just have to put up with “Super-Jackson” for the foreseeable future.

Sources:

Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson: Facts, bio, and information on the Confederate general. https://www.historynet.com/stonewall-jackson/?r

James Robertson Jr, interviewed on Radio IQ, “Little Sorrel,” https://www.wvtf.org/post/little-sorrel

Zenzen, Joan M. (1998). Battling for Manassas: The fifty-year preservation struggle for Manassas National Battlefield Park.