The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862 is the best operational study any commander on either side produced during the Civil War. From late March through early June, Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson marched seventeen thousand men six hundred forty-six miles up and down the Valley, fought six separate engagements, defeated three different Union armies in detail, and tied up sixty thousand Union soldiers — under Nathaniel Banks, John C. Frémont, and the right wing of Irvin McDowell's Army of the Rappahannock — that would otherwise have reinforced George McClellan's drive against Richmond. The campaign worked because Jackson understood the Valley better than the men he was fighting. The Shenandoah runs southwest to northeast between two mountain ranges, with limited passes through to the east. Whichever side controlled the Valley road network could shift forces from end to end faster than the other side could react. Jackson kept his army moving — sometimes twenty-five miles in a day on foot under wool jackets and full kit, which earned them the nickname "foot cavalry" — and concentrated suddenly against whichever isolated Union force he could reach. At Kernstown, McDowell, Front Royal, Winchester, Cross Keys, and Port Republic, he hit a force not large enough to defeat him before reinforcements could arrive. By the time he marched out of the Valley to join Lee on the Peninsula in late June, Lincoln had been forced to hold an army around Washington for fear Jackson was coming next. McClellan never got the reinforcements he had been demanding. The Seven Days that followed forced McClellan back from Richmond. Jackson's Valley Campaign has been taught at West Point, Sandhurst, and Saint-Cyr ever since.

This W. Britain figure depicts Jackson in the field uniform he was known to prefer over more decorated alternatives: the light gray Confederate frock coat with the staff officer's gold-laced sleeves, the wide yellow officer's sash, the regulation belt with brass buckle, the dark blue VMI kepi he kept from his pre-war years as Professor of Natural Philosophy and Artillery Tactics, and the high black field boots. The field glasses in his right hand catch him in the role he spent more time in than any other: observing. Jackson personally reconnoitered ground he intended to fight on, and his subordinates said his eyes were always on the next ridge before they realized there was a ridge to be considered. The hand resting on the grounded sword is characteristic of his pose at headquarters. He was an austere, eccentric, deeply religious commander — he sucked lemons obsessively, held his right arm above his head for long periods because he believed it balanced his blood circulation, and prayed before, during, and after engagements. He was also, by Lee's own assessment, the most aggressive infantry corps commander either army produced. Pair this figure with General Robert E. Lee, the commanding general who called Jackson his "right arm" and whose 1862 campaign would not have succeeded without Jackson's Valley work; with Lt. Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson Mounted on Little Sorrel, the matched mounted figure of the same general on the horse who carried him through the Valley Campaign and to Chancellorsville; or with Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, the corps commander whose I Corps and Jackson's II Corps formed the operational structure of the Army of Northern Virginia from Antietam through Chancellorsville.

Scale: 1/30 (60mm). Matte-painted metal. W. Britain model 31116. From the American Civil War range. Single foot figure, supplied painted and ready for display.