Guinea Station: Where Stonewall Jackson Died

Where Stonewall Jackson died, Virginia © Erin Faith Allen

I am standing alone in the middle of nowhere, facing a small white building in Guinea Station, Virginia, surrounded by the thickest, greenest grass I have ever seen. This is where Stonewall Jackson died.

Jackson did not die in battle but here, in this outbuilding on Thomas Chandler's 740-acre plantation, eight days after being shot by his own men in the dark at Chancellorsville. His left arm had been amputated, and pneumonia took his last breath. When death came, on May 10, 1863, at 3:15 in the afternoon, his last words were: "Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees."

The clock on the mantel still ticks. The original bed frame and blanket are still in the room where he died. The building is the only plantation structure that remains.

I am standing outside, alone, listening to that incandescent shimmer of Virginia trees, when the rainstorm creeps up on my left.

Turning, I see a thick wall of rain rushing at me across the open ground, one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

Then it swallows me whole, and my soul lets out a long, deep smile as I run for shelter across that impossibly green grass.

Virginia holds its history close. I know by now that you have to come out here, to the middle of nowhere, to find it and feel it. It is here, waiting, almost-forgotten … but not quite.