160 Years Ago Today: Battle of Hoke’s Run or Falling Waters

On the morning of Tuesday, July 2, 1861, Union Maj. Gen. Robert Patterson crossed the Potomac River at Williamsport, Maryland with two brigades totaling approximately 8,000 men. Confederate Col. Thomas J. Jackson’s 4,000-man brigade was ordered to delay the Federal advance toward Martinsburg, then a town in Virginia (today, West Virginia), approximately 13.5 miles south…

Illustration of Thomas J. Jackson

Thomas Jonathan Jackson (1824-1863) was born in what is today Clarksburg, West Virginia and graduated from West Point in 1846. He fought in the Mexican War, then taught at the Virginia Military Institute from 1851 to 1861. He was a devout Presbyterian and owned six slaves, mostly acquired through marriage. He established a Sunday school…