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Stonewall
A: Mort Kuntsler, who is one of the greatest living American painters of any genre, and particularly of art with historical and military themes. The title of the painting is Jackson at Antietam.
Q: Is Stonewall a war novel? A: No good saga about Stonewall Jackson would be complete without chronicling his exploits in both the Mexican-American War and the War Between the States. However, this is not a war novel in the strictest sense. In fact, other than the prologue, the war of 1861-65 does not begin until two-thirds of the way through the book. Stonewall is a historical novel that spans the entire life of Thomas J. Jackson. He did not even receive his famed nickname until the last two years of his life.
A: Not at all! In fact, much of the book's most passionate acclaim has come from female readers. Several of the main characters are female, and Stonewall contains several moving love stories. In fact, Maggie Junkin, the Pennsylvania-born and -reared "Poetess of the Confederacy" is virtually a co-main character. This book tells her story as well as Jackson's. Her sister Ellie, Mary Anna Morrison, and Stonewall's sister Laura are also key characters. What actually drew me most strongly to Stonewall Jackson were not his military exploits, legendary as they were, but his dramatic personal life and his unusual, but inspiring spiritual pilgrimage.
A: Often times yes, but not with Stonewall. It is far more fact than fiction. Where the record speaks, which is most of the time in lives like Stonewall, Robert E. Lee, Jeb Stuart, and the Junkin family, I write the story as it speaks. Where it does not, I take dramatic license. Importantly, however, I strive in my books to perform such extensive research that I know my characters and their time and place so well that where I take dramatic license, those scenes are as believable as those which truly happened, and may often, in fact, have happened just as I speculate. Most of the fictional characters--all but one of whom play minor roles in the book--are based on or composites of historical figures.
A: I believe the book features both male and female characters that are believable and three-dimensional, and beset by problems and challenges, some of their own making, that through the virtues and character qualities gained by a faithful relationship with God through Christ, rise above their circumstances and sorrows. Speaking for myself, I need to see some other normal, sinful people that can accomplish mighty deeds and raise higher the standards I should emulate. I could not relate to a character that wasn't portrayed in a human and troubled fashion similar, so often, to my own life. Conversely, I could not draw inspiration and hope through one that did not triumph despite adversity, affliction, and, sometimes, what the world would consider defeat and even tragedy. Stonewall Jackson's life, and in many ways, Maggie Junkin's, were filled with loss and suffering, and they both were far from perfect people, as I show. In fact, I had one reader who evidenced a degree of disappointment in the rough edges of Stonewall's character as I rendered it. I discerned that he was looking for something smoother and cleaner than the flawed, often difficult man of real history. Most readers who comment, however, are astounded at the depth and power of character of the Jackson of Stonewall. A key audience I desire for the book is young men and women, from ten or eleven years on up. I am told I tend to write in a more literary style than most of today's authors. I appreciate such judgments, because I think all of us are accustomed to light, shallow fluff without substance. We are missing so much by not even being capable of reading the classic tales of adventure and heroism. More importantly, however, I want the young men and women to see that it is possible to live chaste lives of purity and honor--that others before them have truly done it--and that in fact those are the sort of lives that ultimately provide the most enduring satisfaction and joy. Such so-called "heroes" as today's young people--teenagers and into their twenties--are offered through sports, music, movies, etc., are rare indeed.
A: Yes, as well as the large--and growing--following of larger-than-life figures such as Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. But it was important for me to demonstrate that some of the theories traditionally offered for why the American Republic fought one of history's most desperate wars with itself are more informed by our contemporary sensibilities and agendas than a historical record that, as life itself, often defies the simplistic explanations we should like to assign it. It is is oh-so-easy from the comfort of our big-screened living rooms and air-conditioned, government-subsidized lecture halls to criticize those who have come before us. I shudder to think what will be thought of us a century or more from now.
A: I hope I have succeeded in demonstrating to the reader that some of the pat, easily packaged explanations for the War Between the States/American Civil War. upon which nearly all of us were weaned, are at best incomplete in their historicity and at worst part of an indoctrination of intolerant political correctness. The latter has for some time been foisted on Americans by institutions such as government, education, and entertainment/media that once served to promote rather than mock the concept, as espoused in the opening question of the Larger Catechism of the Westminster Confession of Faith, that "Man's chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever."
A: The overarching purpose of this tale is that an ordinary life, even one rent by chaos, suffering, and loss, can be brought to order and used by God in extraordinary ways and for extraordinary purposes when that life is submitted to the Lordship of His Son Jesus Christ. To that end, my challenge to the reader is to investigate the message of God's written revelation in the Bible, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation. Like Stonewall Jackson, I believe that book to be one seamless, cohesive unit, bound tightly together by both the first and second comings of Christ, and revealing God's eternal holiness, as well as His calling out of a people for Himself. And like Stonewall, I look to the writings of Calvin, Owen, Edwards, Dabney, Spurgeon, and others in the Reformed tradition to best elucidate the glories of those sublime Scriptures. |
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