Packet Boat Marshall
Bringing Stonewall Jackson Home
After Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson died on May 10, 1863 as a result of wounds suffered a week earlier at the Battle of Chancellorsville, his body was transported first to Richmond for public mourning and then to Lexington for burial. Much of the journey was by train, but the last leg was by water, aboard the James River and Kanawha Canal packet boat Marshall.
On Wednesday, May 13, the train bearing Jackson’s remains pulled into Lynchburg’s Orange and Alexandria Railroad station at 6:30 P.M. Businesses were closed, church bells tolled, and cannons fired as large crowds gathered to pay their respects. An evening service was held in First Presbyterian Church. The coffin was then placed aboard the Marshall, and mules connected to the vessel by towlines pulled it slowly upriver. The boat, which also bore Jackson’s widow, Anna Morrison Jackson, reached Lexington the next morning. On Friday, May 15, Stonewall Jackson was laid to rest.
The packet boat Marshall was damaged in Lexington in June 1864 during Union Gen. David Hunter’s raid. Repaired the next year, it continued in service until 1880, when the canal company went out of business and the old towpath became a railroad bed. The Marshall was docked near Early Street and served as the home of Corbin Spencer and his sister. In 1913, a flood buried the vessel in mud. The iron hull was excavated in 1936 and placed in Riverside Park. In 2006, the Lynchburg Historical Foundation restored the hull and placed it in this protective structure.
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The packet boat Marshall was commissioned in August 1861 to carry mail and passengers on the James River and Kanawha Canal. It was 90 feet long, 14 feet wide, and with a handmade 3/16-inch-thick iron hull. The cabin interior, paneled with Dominican mahogany, had staterooms for male and female passengers, and a dining salon in which hung canvas sleeping berths at night.
Marker can be reached from the intersection of Riverside Street and Rivermont Avenue.
Courtesy hmdb.org
