'Book of Maxims' offers glimpse of rebel general

BLACKSBURG, Va. -- Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, perhaps the most feared and respected of Confederate generals, was by most accounts an odd person to have over for dinner.

Awkward, with a thin, almost feminine voice, he was incapable of chatty conversation. He obsessed about digestion and was known to bring his own food to parties, usually crusts of stale bread.

Besides his military accomplishments, Jackson's eccentricities are what many acquaintances remembered after his death in 1863. But there was much they didn't see.

Jackson's "Book of Maxims," a collection of slogans and bits of wisdom he compiled as a young officer, reveals the kind of man Jackson hoped to become before the country was split by the Civil War. Considered to have disappeared until about 13 years ago, copies of the book, published by Cumberland House, are now available for the first time.

"Too often, the popular perception of Jackson was of a religious zealot, a loose cannon, a hypochondriac," said Jackson biographer James I. Robertson Jr., who rediscovered the maxims in a mislabeled box at Tulane University. "This book shows he was not. ... He was a man who wanted to be liked, who wanted to be part of society if only he could learn how."

Jackson grew up the orphaned son of failed lawyer in the mountains of what is now West Virginia. He had less than a fourth-grade education when he entered West Point, and most of his time at the military academy was spent alone.

"He'd be invited to an afternoon tea, and he'd go and just stand against the wall," Robertson said. "He didn't know what else to do."

His maxims, which he collected in his late 20s from books he was reading and from his own experience, provide a rare view into Jackson's mind at this awkward time.

There were tips for meeting friends: "A man is known by the company he keeps"; "Never weary your company by talking too long or too frequently."

Longer entries dealt with one of his greater difficulties, how to socialize: "Sit or stand still while another is speaking to you -- not dig in the earth with your foot nor take your knife from your pocket & pare your nales (sic) nor other such actions."