---
title: 'Stonewall Jackson: “I Would Go Without My Hat!”'
type: post
author: 'R. Andrew Myers'
date: 2024-05-18
url: https://confessional.org/blog/2024-stonewall-jackson-i-would-go-without-my-hat
---

# Stonewall Jackson: “I Would Go Without My Hat!”

“As an instance of the alacrity with which, if once convinced that a thing was right to do, he did it, on one occasion, when he had been talking of self-abnegation and making rather light of it, a friend suggested that he had not been called upon to endure it, and supposed a case: ‘Imagine that the providence of God seemed to direct you to drop every scheme of life and of personal advancement, and go on a mission to the heart of Africa for the rest of your days, would you go?’ His eyes flashed as he instantly replied: ‘I would go *without my hat*!’” — [**Mary Anna Jackson**](/authors/mary-anna-morrison-jackson), *Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson* (*Stonewall Jackson*) (1892), p. 72