The Stonewall Brigade

The Stonewall Brigade was a collection of five Virginia infantry regiments and an artillery battery in the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Trained and first led by Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, it was perhaps the most accomplished—and certainly one of the most famous—units of its kind in American military history. The brigade is celebrated in this 1863 song written from the perspective of the soldiers in Jackson's command: "We steadily advance in spite of cannon's roar / Nor falter when some fall—alas! to rise no more / Weep not, you mothers! that your sons breathe their last breath / They die in a just cause, and we'll avenge their death."