Jackson Attempts to Resign from the Army

Jackson

After his Romney expedition, Stonewall Jackson had left Loring and his division in Romney for the winter. The officers of Loring's division wrote a petition to the Secretary of War, going over Jackson's head, and asked that Jackson be ordered to withdraw them, since they believed they would be cut off by Union forces. Judah Benjamin, Secretary of War, ordered Jackson to do so. Jackson obeyed the order, but immediately resigned his commission:

Hon. J. P. BENJAMIN, Secretary of War:

SIR: Your order requiring me to direct General Loring to return with his command to Winchester immediately has been received and promptly complied with.
With such interference in my command I cannot expect to be of much service in the field, and accordingly respectfully request to be ordered to report for duty to the superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington, as has been done in the case of other professors. Should this application not be granted, I respectfully request that the President will accept my resignation from the Army.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

T. J. JACKSON,

Major-General, P. A. C. S.

Johnston, Confederate commander in Virginia and the governor of Virginia urged Jackson not to resign, and Jackson finally agreed, although he did say, “If the Secretary persists in the ruinous policy complained of I feel that no officer can serve his country better than by making his strongest possible protest against it, which, in my opinion, is done by tendering his resignation, rather than be a willful instrument in prosecuting the war upon a ruinous principle."