 In 1861, after Virginia seceded from the Union and as the American Civil War broke out, Jackson became a drill master for some of the many new recruits in the Confederate Army.On April 27, 1861, Virginia Governor John Letcher ordered Colonel Jackson to take command at Harpers Ferry, where he would assemble and command the unit which later gained fame as the "Stonewall Brigade", consisting of the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 27th, and 33rd Virginia Infantry regiments.All of these units were from the Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia, where Jackson located his headquarters throughout the first two years of the war.