Confederate General Sonewall Jackson Statue at the West Virginia State Capitol

Thomas Jonathan (Stonewall) Jackson of West Virginia

Stonewall Jackson and the West Virginia State Capitol - Flicker Photo by Angie

While visiting the West Virginia state capitol grounds in Charleston, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that, in 1910, this monument to Confederate General Stonewall Jackson became the first statue to be erected at the capitol.  This was  just 50 years or so after West Virginia seceded from Virginia during the War Between the States, then rejoined the Union.     Jackson was born in Clarksburg, and grew up at Jackson's Mill, Lewis County, in what is today part of West Virginia.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy commissioned Moses Ezekiel, then working in Italy, to design the bronze statue to honor soldiers from western Virginia who fought for the Confederacy. The statue was first erected on the old Capitol gounds, located downtown, then moved to the new Capitol in 1921. An identical copy of Ezekiel's "Jackson" stands on the parade grounds of Ezekiel's alma mater, the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia.