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OH^R^CTER 
 
 
 STONEWALL JACKSON. 
 
 I AM BECOME A NAME. 
 
 Ulysses : Tennyson. 
 
 By JOHN WARWICK DANIEL. 
 
 LYNCHBURG: 
 SCHAFFTER & BRYANT, Printers. 
 
 1868. 
 
."E^fel 
 
 1 \b 
 
 sli 
 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S6S, liy 
 
 SCIIAFFTER & BRYANT, 
 
 111 tlie Diatriit Court of the United States for the District of Virginia. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 This Sketch ot Jackson is an overgrown Lecture delivered for the 
 benefit of the Manassas Memorial Association. It was thought 
 advisable to elaborate the details in preparing it for print, and hence 
 its proportions are enlarged while its original style is retained. 
 
 The following volumes have been chiefly relied upon for information: 
 
 I. Lift of Lieut.-Gen. Thomas J. Jack.ien, by R. L. Dabney, D.D. Blelock & Co., N. Y., 1S66. 
 
 II. The Life of Stoneiuall Jackson, from Official Papers, Contemporary Narratives, and Per- 
 
 sonal Acquaintance, by a Viroin-ian. Charles B. KicharJson, N. Y., 1S66. 
 
 III. The Life of Thomas J. Jackson, by an Ex-Cadet. .Tames E. Goode, Richmond, 1864. 
 
 IV. Life of Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson. M. Doolady, N. Y., 1866. 
 
 V. Life and Campaigns of Gen. Robert E. Lee, by .Tames D. McCade, .Tr. National Publish- 
 
 ing Company. 
 
 VI. Army of the Potomac, by William Swixton. Cliarles B. Richardson, N. Y., 1866. 
 
 VII. A Memoir of the Last Year of the War for Independence in the Confederate States 
 of America, containing an account of the Operations of his Commands in the years 
 1S6J, and 1S65, by Lieut.-Gen. Jubal A. Early. C. W. Button, Lynchburg, 1867. 
 
 VIII. Official Reports of the Confederate States, and United States Authorities. 
 
STONEWALL JACKSON. 
 
 I 
 
 The Caskets in the Merchant of Venice that were outwardly 
 attractive were proportionately deceptive. The Prince of Morocco, 
 Portia's first suitor, chose the golden casket, and found in it a death's 
 head. The Prince of Arragon chose the silver one, and was rewarded 
 with the image of a fool. Bassanio selected the modest casket of 
 lead, and within discovered the likeness of his sweet-heart, which 
 was the title to her hand. 
 
 The disappointed lovers in the Shakspearian drama were not 
 more deluded by appearances than were the people of the Confe- 
 derate States in many of the public men to whom they committed 
 their destinies in the late revolution. With the preeminent excep- 
 tion of Jefferson Davis, (by far the greatest man produced on either 
 side,) and one or two others of lesser note, the politicians who 
 figured in the preliminaries of the war proved, like the companions 
 of Ulysses, incapable of directing the winds they had succeeded in 
 arousing. They were, generally speaking, marplots in military affairs, 
 short-sighted and impracticable in finance, and the various other 
 departments of political economy. They were depressed and lost 
 hope with our first serious adversities, and the death's head of a Lost 
 Cause is all that we have gained from their golden promises. A large 
 majority of the military men, in whom it was confidently hoped the 
 South would find great leaders for her armies, were also disappoint- 
 ments. Their course was marked by devoted patriotism and deter- 
 mined valor, and no reproach stains their swords. But with rare 
 
exceptions they proved incapable of comprehending the grand pro- 
 portions and the practical necessities of the revolution, or of com- 
 bining armies in a wide and complicated field of operations, and the 
 contents of the silver casket were little less in harmony with its 
 shining exterior than were their performances with the expectations 
 they excited. 
 
 • It was in a man in whom none imagined to repose the capacities of 
 a great captain, in whom were disclosed those rare martial qualities 
 that best befit the chief of men inflamed with the ideas and passions 
 of a revolution. It was a plain Presbyterian deacon, a professor in 
 a military academy, known hitherto only as a brave subordinate, a 
 conscientious churchman, and an earnest instructor of youth, who 
 rose the most rapidly to high command, wlio proved most capable of 
 wielding it, who achieved the most brilliant feats of arms, and died 
 the most regretted. And as Bassanio found in the modest casket of 
 lead the talisman of his success in love, so did the people of the South 
 find in the modest person of Stonewall Jackson the talisman of 
 their success in war. In his genius was contained the likeness of 
 our victories, and but for the inscrutable Providence that struck him 
 down we would in all probability have found the title-deeds of our 
 independence. 
 
 Since the curtain fell after the bloody tragedy of the secession 
 war, every form of intellectual communication has been busily 
 employed to familiarize the world with its actors. Essayists, medal- 
 ists, lecturers, painters, sculptors and historians have all been tasked 
 to meet popular demands ; and amongst their productions we have 
 five histories, and many other lesser delineations of Jackson. 
 
 The first of these histories — as they arc called by courtesy — is from 
 the Richmond press, and purports to be written by an ex-cadet. 
 Who he may be, we do not know and have no curiosity to know. 
 The book is a small one, and chiefly a rehash of newspaper articles, 
 and has no value as historical authority. 
 
 We have then a history of Jefi"erson Davis and Stonewall Jackson 
 under one cover from M. Doolady, of New York. The volume is 
 written in admirable temper, and with an evident desire for justice. 
 It was intended, however, for current sale, and has no merit as a 
 history. 
 
 A life of Jackson, by a Virginian, from Ilichardson's publishing 
 house, came out in 1866. and the public were falsely assured that it 
 
was from the peu of John M. Daniel. This fraud answered its pur- 
 pose in procuring buyers, and the same work was then republished 
 by Appleton, under the name of its true author, Captain John Esten 
 Cooke. The book is written in a lively, gossipy style, and contains 
 some striking sketches; but*it would be a grave misnomer to call it a 
 history. 
 
 Dr. Dabney has given us the most elaborate, reliable and interest- 
 ing treatment of the subject. But it is not a military history in the 
 professional meaning of the term, and such a history was the kind 
 wanted. There is too much of Dr. Dabney's and of General Jackson's 
 religious opinions. Jackson's religious character is inseparable from 
 his military character, and a brief sketch of its striking features 
 would have been in good taste ; but the laborious arguments of Dr. 
 Dabney in defence of Prcsbyterianism, and his strictures upon other 
 denominations, are entirely out of place. Equally ill-timed are the 
 frequent efforts of Dr. Dabney to show that in particular exigencies 
 Providence took particular pains to assist or rescue Jackson and put 
 victory in his hands. Polemics and tactics do not mix well together. 
 Dr. Dabney's theological school is not a place for squad drill or lec- 
 tures on projectiles, nor a military memoir a place for dissertations on 
 special providences. We believe as firmly in an overruling Provi- 
 dence as Dr. Dabney does. AVe believe that Providence helps those 
 who help themselves; but as to how or when, that no mortal can say. 
 As the poet has told us. Providence is 
 
 " All Isis hid under a veil,'' 
 
 and, indeed, Kevelation itself has said that " its ways are past finding 
 out." 
 
 Jackson and his Confederates appeal to a higher tribunal than mere 
 success. As Scott* has tersely put the case, we think that mere 
 victory, as the satirist has said of wealth, cannot be of much impor- 
 tance in the eye of Heaven, seeing in what unworthy association it is 
 sometimes found. Aside from these blemishes of taste, the book is a 
 good one, and so far superior to the majority of war books that it 
 deserves a generous public favor. 
 
 The History of Lee, so-called, by McCabe, is valuable only for the 
 portions which the author did not write — the military dispatches and 
 reports. The rest is unreclaimed by a single merit. 
 
 * Life of NiiiioU'ou. 
 
8 
 
 The History of the Army of the Potomac, by Mr. Swinton does 
 honor to his head and his heart. It is the best military work that 
 the war has produced. The author has aimed to do full justice to the 
 Army of Northern Virginia and its leaders, and it is equally credita- 
 ble to him who saw it only from hostile ranks, and to it, " that body 
 of incomparable infantry," as he terms it, that his pen should have 
 pronounced its noblest eulogy.* 
 
 General Early's book is in every respect admirable — admirable in 
 temper, admirable in design, admirable in its composition and in its 
 object. It touches only upon campaigns subsequent to Jackson's 
 death, but they were fought often upon the same fields and with the 
 same men, and this volume throws light upon anterior events. Its 
 topographical descriptions arc remarkably clear and accurate, and it 
 is a book which may be relied upon. Its author, with a generosity 
 that shines as conspicuously in these self-seeking times as his ability 
 and heroism shone in the war, has donated the proceeds of its sale to 
 the Memorial Associations of Virginia, which have for their object 
 the decent interment of the Confederate Dead. From these sources, 
 from ofiicial documents, and from personal recollections of the Army, 
 we shall attempt to present a correct idea of Jackson, and we hope, 
 even in a pamphlet, to produce a true image of his character, as the 
 truth of a likeness docs not depend on its size. Had Haephestion 
 carried out his conception of hewing Mt. Athos into a statue of 
 Alexander his form and features would not have been so well expressed 
 as in the statuette that sits upon the mantel ; and our aim shall be 
 to reverse the idea of the ancient artist, and reduce a mass of history 
 into the miniature of a Colossus. 
 
 II 
 
 Thomas Jonathan Jackson was born in Clarksburg, Harrison 
 county, (West) Virginia, on the 21st of January, 1824. His ances- 
 tors were English settlers, who had fixed their residence in that sec- 
 tion in 1748. The Jackson family have been distinguished from the 
 first — as far as their record reaches — as people of energy, integrity, 
 courage, and sterling good sense, and it has been frequently and 
 worthily represented in Congress, in the Judiciary, and in the Gen- 
 eral Assembly of Virginia. When Jackson was three years old, his 
 
 * Vide sec XIII of this pamplilet. 
 
father, who seems to have had but little business capacity, died a 
 bankrupt, and the orphan found an asylum in the home of an uncle, 
 with whom he resided until seventeen years of age. That Thomas 
 generally labored on the farm during the larger part of the year, 
 and learned the rudiments of an ordinary education during the 
 winter months; that he was serious and meditative in his caste of 
 mind, hardy in frame, good natured, resolute, and industrious, con- 
 stitute the chief facts which the biographers have resurrected from 
 the traditions of his early years. As soon as a hero has made a pro- 
 found impression on his times, it seems quite easy for his historians 
 to discover in his boyish antecedents the lineaments of the coming 
 man. We are told that Napoleon gave unmistakeable prognostica- 
 tions of Toulon and Austerlitz in laying siege to snow forts and lead- 
 ing forlorn hopes with snowballs during his first winter campaign in 
 boots and breeches. As soon as Clive had finished his daring career 
 in India, all the old folks of his neighborhood in England chatted 
 about the mad-cap pranks of Bob Clive when a boy, and told a won- 
 dering world how, to the great terror of all sober-minded people, he 
 use^ to climb up the steeple of Market Drayton, and nicely balance 
 himself upon the summit. We have all been fully informed by the 
 father of General Grant how distinctly Ulysses' idea of sticking to a 
 bad line, though it took all summer, was prefigured by his sticking to 
 a bad horse in a circus some forty years ago. We have no very sig- 
 nificant premonitions of Manassas, and Chancellorsville, and the Foot 
 Cavalry of the Valley, in our hero's youthful amusements, except 
 that he succeeded admirably in mauling rails, while his genius occa- 
 sionally broke out in a horse race. Dr. Dabney says that it was the 
 gossip of all the countryside that if a horse had any winning quali- 
 ties in him they would inevitably come out when young Tom Jackson 
 rode him in the race. 
 
 As he approached manhood, however, he distinctly revealed those 
 strong qualities which are visible throughout his subsequent career. 
 A great, earnest Englishman* of our own day has justly said, that 
 '• sincerity — a great, deep, genuine sincerity — is the first characteristic 
 of all men in any way heroic." Sincerity of purpose, sustained by a 
 never flagging, never hesitating, ever working resolution — sincerity 
 that went forward, and feared not, is the most marked characteristic 
 of Jackson. At about eighteen years of age he resolved to become 
 
 *Carl.vlo: Heroes in History. 
 B 
 
10 
 
 a soldier. He was then without a better education than could be 
 acquired at an old field school; he had little means and few friends; 
 and these discouraged his purpose to apply for a vacant cadetship at 
 West Point. But he had made up his mind, and he answered: "I 
 know I shall have the application necessary to succeed ; I hope that I 
 have the capacity ; at least I am determined to try." He finally suc- 
 ceeded in getting an appointment at West Point, and entered the 
 academy in 1842. He barely managed to pass his first examination, 
 but his progress, though slow, was steady and thorough. He made 
 it a rule never to pass over the page of a text book until he had mas- 
 tered it. He graduated seventeenth in a distinguished class ; and 
 such had been his indomitable energy that it was generally remarked 
 that had the course been a little longer he would assuredly have grad- 
 uated at the head. 
 
 In 1846, his novitiate at West Point having ended, he became 
 second lieutenant of artillery in the United States Army. 
 
 The Mexican war was then in progress, and he was soon sent to 
 the field as second lieutenant in the light battery of Captain John 
 Bankhead Magruder. In his first fight, at the bombardment of Vera 
 Cruz, his gallantry won promotion to a first lieutenancy. In the 
 second he became a captain by brevet, and when the army entered 
 the city of Mexico he had arisen to the rank of major. In the entire 
 army of General Scott, comprising, as it did, the choice military 
 spirits of the United States, who became the leaders of the armies 
 of the North and South, there was not one who had received more 
 frequent recognitions of merit than this modest lieutenant who had 
 no friends but those of his own making, and had met with no oppor- 
 tunity without improving it. 
 
 After the close of the Mexican war he served for several years on 
 garrison duty in New York and in Florida. In 1851 he was elected 
 Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy and Artillery 
 Tactics in the Virginia Military Institute. He held that position 
 until 1861, when he left it at the head of the corps of cadets, and 
 never returned until, after signalizing his name and his country for- 
 ever, he returned upon his bier. 
 
11 
 
 III 
 
 Let us glance at some of his prominent qualities as a man before 
 criticising his genius as a General. 
 
 Plutarch has observed, in speaking of one of his heroes, that as 
 the expression of the eye often gives us more insight into character 
 than the whole countenance besides, so do incidents and anecdotes 
 reveal more than extended history. There is no character of the war 
 of whom more characteristic incidents are related than Jackson, or 
 of whom the incidents are so characteristic. {lie was altogether 
 unique and original, and had more individuality than any man of his 
 times. J He was a man of inflexible qualities. He had neither quick- 
 ness nor brilliancy ol' mind, but he was an excellent illustration of 
 the principle that he who can control himself can control others, and 
 his self-control was nearly perfect. By severe discipline he had 
 acquired the power of concentrating or relaxing his energies at will. 
 It was his habit while a professor to spend some hours every night in 
 meditation upon the lessons of the day, and this practice wonderfully 
 developed his memory and his powers of ratiocination. He /was 
 never diverted from his studies by the conversation of others, but 
 having once fixed his attention upon an object he was oblivious to all 
 things else until that object was accomplished. His punctuality 
 became a proverb amongst the cadets of the Institute. He slept, 
 studied, and performed all his duties by clock work; and his asso- 
 ciates knew the time of day by the movements of Major Jackson. 
 He governed his physical appetites with a rod of iron. Except under 
 medical advice he never touched ardent spirits. To a companion in 
 the army, who invited him to join him in a social glass, he said : 
 "No; I am much obliged to you, but I never use it. I like it, but I 
 am more afraid of it than of federal bullets." " When the people 
 about him," says Dr. Dabney, " complained of headaches or other 
 consequences of imprudence, he would say, 'Do as I do : govern 
 yourself absolutely, and you will not suffer. My head never aches. 
 If a thing disagrees with me, I never eat it.'" He used no stimu- 
 lants whatever — neither coffee, tea, tobacco or wine, but with rigid 
 simplicity confined himself to the most abstemious asceticism. It 
 was a maxim which he early adopted, and soon illustrated, that "You 
 may be whatever you resolve to be;" and the good sense which pre- 
 ceded, and the stern determination which followed out his resolutions, 
 were sure sruarantees of their successful results. 
 
12 
 
 His keen appreciation of, and his warm devotion to principles, indi- 
 cated a moral nature of the finest and strongest texture.* Perhaps 
 he was more scrupulous about small matters than principle required, 
 but it was because he knew that small defects lead to great vices — that 
 
 "It is the little rift within the lute 
 That by and by will make the music mute, 
 And ever widening, slowly silence all." 
 
 As a professor Major Jackson seems to have discharged his duties 
 with ability and satisfaction, but his reserved manners, his reticence, 
 and his vigorous discipline prevented him from becoming very popular 
 with the cadets, who are always most fond of those genial, sociable 
 natures which mingle most freely with them. He was not fluent, 
 though lucid in his lectures. It is said that in order to acquire 
 facility in lecturing he joined a debating society in Lexington. He 
 was at first very awkward and halting in his efforts, and had fre- 
 quently to resume his seat in confusion ; but he persisted in spite of 
 repeated failures, and became a clear and forcible, though never 
 loquent, speaker. 
 
 In his religious character, Jackson revealed all his earnestness, 
 lethod, industry, and solid enthusiasm, verifying his professions by 
 his deeds. When his mind was exercised for the first time on the 
 subject of religion, he studied the Bible before he studied any creed — 
 he went to the fountain head of all orthodox religion at once, lie 
 then availed himself of his residence in Mexico to become thoroughly 
 acquainted with the doctrines of Roman Catholicism, which pleased 
 
 * " He was accustomed to argue that having determined any rule to be 
 necessary, he was under a moral obligation to observe it. In vain did any 
 friend plead that the one instance of relaxation in his system could not pos- 
 sibly work an appreciable injury. His uniform answer was: 'Perfectly 
 true ; but it would become a precedent for another, and thus my rule would 
 be broken down and health would be injured, which would be a sin.' Thus 
 he carried out his self-denial in the use of his eye-sight so rigidly that even 
 a letter received on Saturday night, if it was only one of compliment and 
 friendship, was not read by him until Monday morning ; for his Sabbaths 
 were sacredly reserved from the smallest secular distractions. If his friend 
 exclaimed, 'Surely your eyes would not be injured by the reading of one 
 letter now,' his answer was, 'I suppose they would not ; but if I read this 
 letter to-night, which it is not truly necessary to do, I shall be tempted to 
 read something else that interests me to-morrow night, and the next, so 
 that my rule will be broken down.'" — Dr. Dahncy, p. 75. 
 
13 
 
 but did not satisfy him. He then studied the doctrines of Episcopacy 
 and other denominations, and finally settled into Calvinistic Presby- 
 terianism. He has been called a fanatic in religion, but not justly; 
 for while he was firm to immovability in his own opinions, while he 
 carried his belief in the special interferences of Providence beyond 
 ordinary creeds, he was not only tolerant, but liberal in his views 
 of the religion of others, freely according the right of perfect 
 freedom to their opinions which he asserted to his own. He has 
 been compared to Cromwell very properly, so far as his infiexible 
 abilities for ruling men are concerned, but there was nothing of the 
 puritan in his composition. He was of metal equally hard but more 
 finely tempered in the fires of a purer Christianity. He carried his 
 whole soul into the church as into all his undertakings. He 
 instructed a class of young men in Lexington in the evidences of 
 Christianity, and delivered a course of public lectures on the same 
 subject in Beverly, Kandolph county, Virginia. He founded and 
 taught as principal a Sabbath school of African slaves, consisting 
 of about one hundred pupils and twelve teachers. Being pleased 
 with the Hebrew system of religious oblations, he scrupulously 
 donated a tithe of his whole income to charitable purposes, besides 
 liberally responding to all special appeals when worthy. His religion 
 tinged all the acts of his life. It was to him the key of the morning 
 and the bolt of the night. It was no shining Sunday garment, but 
 his uniform at home and abroad ; his cloak in bivouac, his armor in 
 battle. Frequently, wben his army was being formed for battle, 
 his attendants noticed that his lips moved, and his right arm was 
 upraised — they knew that he was in prayer. This done, his reso- 
 lution was fixed, and execution followed the plan as the discharge of 
 a missile follows the touch of the trigger, j 
 
 It will be surprising to many to hear that Jackson was a man of 
 the highest ambition. He aspired to eminence in whatever he under- 
 took. He had that thirst for glory which is thp almost invariable 
 characteristic of elevated minds, and is inconceivable to all others; 
 and he used every honorable exertion to win it. At the battle of 
 Chapultepec, where his section had lost severely, " his friends asked 
 him if he felt no trepidation when so many were falling around him. 
 He replied, ' No ; the only anxiety of which he was conscious in any 
 engagement was a fear lest he should not meet danger enough to make 
 his conduct under it as conspicuous as he desired; and as the fire grew 
 
14 
 
 hotter he rejoiced ia it as his coveted opportunity.' "* He held that 
 high rank in his profession should be the officer's highest consideration, 
 for which convenience, ease, wealth, and all other personal comforts 
 should be sacrified.f But his ambition was never overweening, 
 envious, selfish, or ill-regulated. To an influential gentleman, who 
 wrote to him for an appointment for a friend during the war, he 
 answered : " If a person desires office in these times, the best thing 
 for him to do is at once to pitch into service somewhere, and work 
 with such energy, zeal, and success, as to impress those around him 
 with the conviction that such are his merits he must be advanced or 
 the interest of the public service must suffer. "| No fancy, orna- 
 mental gentlemen for him ! It was by this means that his own ambi- 
 tion sought elevation. 
 
 He was no intriguer or office-seeker, but in whatever field he labored 
 he pitched into obstacles with such "energy, zeal, and success" that 
 promotion sought him. His was not the selfish ambition of a Caesar — 
 " aut Csesar, aut nullus ;" it was not envious like that of Themistocles, 
 whom the trophies of Militiades would not permit to sleep; but like 
 that of Washington, it was inspired by the consciousness of merit, 
 and chastened by devotion to duty. It was not the vain ambition 
 that loved the uppermost places at feasts, or builded the monument 
 for the monument's sake ; but it was the God-given desire to bring to 
 its highest fruition the talent committed to him ; to become worthy of 
 trust over many things by proving faithful over a few ; to set his light 
 upon a hill that it might shine before men, and that seeing his good 
 works, they should glorify the Father who sent him. 
 
 Jackson's personal appearance sadly disappointed those who had 
 expected to behold the hero of a picture He looked, as he ambled 
 through his camps or his lines on his gaunt sorrel horse, more like a 
 sailor, who had accidentally fallen up, and didn't know how to get 
 down, than like a knightly leader about to perform deeds that song 
 and story would remember. An old faded coat of grey, upon which 
 every season had left its marks, rough boots, a plain military cap, 
 were his constant dress, and no stranger who had met him as he thus 
 attired rode unattended over the battle field, would ever have dreamed 
 that he was "Stonewall Jackson." When he was in Maryland in 
 1863 a crowd gathered near his headquarters to see him. They 
 
 *Page 52, Dr. Dalmcy. 
 tPage 68. 
 JPage 250. 
 
L 
 
 15 
 
 expected epaulets, gold lace, feathers, ornamental aides-de-camp, and 
 numerous interesting items of display. Presently General Jackson 
 stepped out of his tent alone, and told a sentinel to keep the crowd at 
 a distance. "What shabby looking chap is that?" inquired several. 
 "That's 'old Stonewall,'" answered one of his men. "That Stone- 
 wall Jackson ! Well, I guess he's no great shakes after all," said 
 some of the bystanders; "he's not much for looks any how. '7 You 
 had to come within reach of his eye before you felt the force of his 
 presence. A more resolute, frank, honest, penetrating eye never 
 illumined a human countenance, j " When I looked into his face," 
 said a federal prisoner, " my heart sank within me." It was not 
 generally the "blazing eye" which the war writers have spoken of, 
 but there was an expression of inexorable purpose, of slumbering 
 might in it, such as we have never beheld in another. 
 
 "A king in the midst of bis body guard," says Carlyle,* " with all 
 his trumpets, war horses, and gilt standard bearers, will look great, 
 though he be little ; but only some Roman Carus can give audience 
 to satrap ambassadors while seated on the ground, with a woollen cap, 
 and supping on boiled peas like a common soldier." Any military 
 pretender could create a sensation on Pennsylvania Avenue or 
 Franklin Street during the war when duly rigged out with spurs, 
 stars, plumes, and broad cloth — but only such solid men as Robert 
 Lee, Jubal Early, and Stonewall Jackson, could make the faded gray 
 appear grander than royal purple. j 
 
 TV 
 
 It has been a common cry against the officers of the Confederate 
 States Army, who were educated at West Point at the expense of the 
 people of the United States, that " they were taught by the charity of 
 the nation, and that they ungenerously repaid it by turning their 
 swords against their benefactors." The fanatics who urge this argu- 
 ment must be fools " as gross as ignorance made drunk," if upon a 
 cool reflection they do not see its error. The corps of cadets at West 
 Point was composed of appointees made from the several States in 
 proportion to the number of its people, as enumerated for Congres- 
 sional representation; and although their expenses were paid from the 
 
 *E9says : Schiller, p. 257. 
 
16 
 
 Treasury of the general government, the means were supplied by tax- 
 ation of the people of the States — so that each State really supported 
 its own cadets. The southern cadets and army officers withdrew 
 from the pay of the United States simultaneously with the withdrawal 
 of their States from the Union. They were paid virtually by their 
 own States while in public service, and resigned that service the 
 instant that their States ceased to contribute their proportion of 
 public expenditures. 
 
 The party in power is now doing us an act of injustice in striking 
 contrast to its false criticisms on our soldiers : taxing the Southern 
 States to educate northern cadets at West Point, and denying entrance 
 to the youths of the South. It is plain, however, that this question, 
 and all similar ones, are involved in the one great issue of the war, 
 " the right of a State to secede." If affirmed, all incidental ques- 
 tions are affirmed. If negatived, all incidental questions are like- 
 wise negatived, with neither more or less condemnation individually, 
 than attaches to all. 
 
 Jackson was a States Right Democrat, and believed in the right of 
 secession ; but he was never prominently identified with the mainte- 
 nance of that right until it was committed to arms, and his opinion 
 amounts to no more on that subject than the opinion of any other 
 upright and intelligent citizen. But, however the legal technicalities 
 of secession may be determined, the fair fame of Jackson and his asso- 
 ciates in arms cannot be affected. The Declaration of Independence 
 had planted firmly in the American heart, and the " United States" 
 itself traced its legitimacy as a nation to the seminal principle of nat- 
 ural law, that it is one of the unalienable rights of a people to alter or 
 abolish a government when it becomes destructive of the ends it was 
 formed to secure ; and this truth is amply able to sustain the moral 
 weight of the " Lost Cause," if the right of secession were struck 
 from under it. Remitted to our rights as Revolutionists, we point 
 proudly to the Revolution itself. For four years, eight millions of 
 people, poorly provided in every material element of war, defied 
 twenty millions, rich in every resource, and assisted by 300,000 
 foreign soldiers — beating them back in battle, and yet staining their 
 own hands in no needless blood. Such a struggle could only spring 
 from a great cause. A people could not be exhorted by demagogues to 
 such heroic and such long sustained efforts. It was a revolution of 
 geography, of climate, of blood, of history, of social — not govern- 
 mental — institutions. A spark kindled it, and it blazed up, a new 
 
17 
 
 illustration of the truth well stated by Louis Napoleon in his Life of 
 Csesar : " a great effect is always due to a great cause, never to a 
 small one ; in other words, an accident insignificant in appearance 
 never leads to important results, without a preexisting cause which 
 has permitted this slight accident to produce a great effect. The 
 spark only lights up a vast conflagration when it falls upon combus- 
 tible matters previously collected. "* The election of Abraham 
 Lincoln, a candidate committed to aggressive sectional principles, to 
 the Presidency of the United States, was simply the spark that 
 ignited the vast pile, which, indeed, was almost ready to flame out in 
 spontaneous combustion. Each section instinctively grasped its arms, 
 and the Confederates, having appealed to the " wager of battle," are 
 compelled to abide by its decision. It was intended for, and is in 
 fact, very good satire, but it is also a principle of that practically 
 unprincipled code called International Law, that we find in the lines : 
 
 " Treason ne'er prospers : what's the reason? 
 When it does, men dare not call it Treason," 
 
 or as Artemus Ward humorously puts the case, " Traitors are mighty 
 unfortunate people ; if they wan't, they wouldn't be traitors." We, 
 as a conquered people, will have to submit to be called traitors until 
 good fortune gives us new names. But our bitterest enemies uncon- 
 sciously grant that treason washed itself free of every stain, and 
 shone in the spotless purity of honor and of truth, when she grasped 
 the battle flag of the South. "Treason," say they, "must be made 
 odious." Treason stands in history odorous of heroic deeds. What- 
 ever odium may ever attach to it is to be distilled from the venomous 
 lies of odious hearts. 
 
 The magazine and newspaper writers of the North generally, have 
 compared what they are pleased to call the " treason" of Jackson and 
 Lee to that of Marlborough and Ney ; and some of them seem to 
 imagine that they are excessively generous in elevating the dis- 
 tinauished rebels to the companionship of such mighty names. The 
 cases are not in the least analogous. The ex-officers of the United 
 States Army who espoused the Confederate cause solemnly believed 
 that paramount sovereignty existed in the governments of their 
 States. They declared, in anticipation of war, that in that event they 
 would follow the fortunes of their States. They proclaimed their 
 sentiments openly in the army, while their representatives advocated 
 
 * Preface to Lifi: of Orsar, hy Napoleon III. 
 C 
 
18 
 
 them in Congress, and such was the legal force of their opinions that 
 those who combatted them in the field have shrunk from discussing 
 them in the courts, even before judges of their own selection. To 
 this day secession has not been decided to be unconstitutional, and 
 our commander-in-chief, the rankest of traitors, if any are traitors, 
 still lies in bonds, enduring, like Paul under the unjust centurion, a 
 judgment which first condemns, then punishes, and finally investi- 
 gates. The Confederates stand upon firmer legal ground than Wash- 
 ington and his Generals. The latter claimed no right save that which 
 exists in the universal instinct of self-defence, while the former, in 
 addition to their natural rights, were guided by their own interpreta- 
 tion, and a very generally recognized interpretation, of the written law. 
 Let us glance at the case of Marlborough. He was a major gen- 
 eral in the army of James II, when the aggressions of that monarch 
 on the civil and religious liberties of his people caused them to rise 
 in arms against him. In this exigency, Churchhill had the unques- 
 tionable right to select which party he would join, and the moralist 
 and the patriot could have found nothing to reprobate in his choice. 
 But he endeavored to serve both masters until he could calculate 
 which was the stronger. He retained his office, and enjoyed its 
 emoluments, but secretly communicated with the Prince of Orange, 
 and schemed against his benefactor. Caesar was not more unsus- 
 picious of Brutus than James was of his favorite, and Brutus was 
 not more unscrupulous in stabbing Caesar than Churchhill was in 
 deserting James. The King, so far from listening to the whispers of 
 his attendants against the loyalty of Churchhill, repressed and 
 rebuked them ; and when the Prince of Orange had actually landed 
 with an invading army, he promoted him to be lieutenant general, 
 and dispatched him with a corps of five thousand men to meet him. 
 Yet, three months before this, Churchhill had written to William that 
 he was thoroughly devoted to his cause. James, in trusting ignor- 
 ance of the perfidy of the chief stay of his throne, expected that the 
 next bulletin would bring tidings of his success, and was startled 
 when it arrived to learn that he had deserted, with the Duke of 
 Grafton, and the principal officers of his regiment, to the standard of 
 the invader. By a series of machinations Churchhill succeeded in 
 seducing the monarch's own household and kinsmen from his cause ; 
 even persuading the Princess Anne to desert the falling fortunes ot 
 her father, and leaving the bereft and desolate king to feel like old 
 Kin" Lear : 
 
19 
 
 "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is, 
 To have a thankless child." 
 
 "My God," exclaimed James, when he heard the news, "my very 
 children have deserted me." Marlborough was simply a bold, brave, 
 adroit, and selfish man, distinguished not more by his brilliant talents 
 as a negotiator and a general, than he is approbious by his low and 
 dishonorable craft. Like Themistocles, he was subtle, sagacious, 
 fearless, and inexhaustible in resources, but like him, also, he dis- 
 dained the limits that principle sets to action, and applied to meas- 
 ures no other criterion than whether or not they were favorable to his 
 designs. 
 
 Marshal Ney's case is a little better. His impulses were good, 
 and we can sympathize with him because he had none of that cold, 
 calculating hard-heartedness that characterized Marlborough. But 
 Ney was a traitor, and though his character may be white-washed 
 with rhetoric, yet the dark color is plainly visible under the white- 
 wash. After swearing allegiance to the Bourbons, he started out 
 from the Tuileries declaring that he would bring back the ex-emperor 
 in an iron cage. As soon as he got to camp he issued a proclamation 
 calling on the troops to desert the Bourbons and mount the tri-color 
 cockade. 
 
 Marlborough, as Alison says, betrayed the trust reposed in him by 
 his old master and tried benefactor, to range himself under the banner 
 of a competitor for the throne, to whom he was bound neither by 
 duty nor obligation. Ney abandoned the trust reposed in him by 
 a new master, forced upon an unwilling nation, to rejoin his- old 
 benefactor and companion-in-arms. 
 
 Neither Jackson, or any of the Confederates betrayed any trust 
 whatever. They acted openly, according to their construction of the 
 Constitution. Marlborough's character wears an ineifaceable stain. 
 Ney's, to say the least, is tarnished by his vacillation. Jackson's was 
 distinguished not more by military ability than by moral worth, and 
 when true history is written his name will be linked in the same 
 bright chain with the names of Hampden and of Washington. 
 
20 
 
 In attempting to analyze the military character of Jackson we 
 cannot too carefully guard against those manifold causes which mis- 
 lead public judgment of military men ; for there is no character so 
 difficult to estimate, or to delineate as that of the military com- 
 mander. We have seen in our own day so many pretenders made up 
 into heroes by newspaper correspondents and political friends, that 
 we have become skeptical of military fame, and are ready to subscribe 
 to Aristotle's maxim : that the highest wisdom is incredulity — in 
 military affairs at least. 
 
 It was remarked by a sagacious French philosopher* that the eulo- 
 gies pronounced on the Generals of France by members of the 
 Academy would, with a few alterations of names and dates, apply as 
 well to one as to another. And justly — for they were simply rhetori- 
 cal variations of all the terms of military compliment which their 
 vocabularies furnished, and the figure of the commander was obscured 
 under the profusion of verbose decorations which they heaped upon 
 him. It requires patient research and a keen discrimination to deter- 
 mine in what proportion the victory is due to the genius of the chief, 
 to the ability of his subordinates, to the valor and discipline of his 
 troops, to the character of his adversary, and finally, to those apparent 
 freaks of chance which neither he nor his opponent could foresee or 
 regulate. In considering the campaigns of the most distingushed 
 commanders we frequently find them decided by events which no 
 sagacity could forecast or avert. The sudden swelling of a stream — 
 the stumbling of a horse — the breaking of a wheel — the course of a 
 single bullet — is often the pivot upon which a battle hinges and a 
 continent changes front. Sometimes the wisest dispositions come 
 to grief; sometimes the most silly result in victory. 
 
 Frederick the Great ran away from his first battle and hid in a 
 mill — only to learn, a few hours later, that a tenacious subordinate 
 had clung to the field and changed its fortunes. Thus beginning his 
 career, " covered with glory and corn meal," he became that Fred- 
 erick whose genius shone so resplendently throughout the Seven 
 Years "War, who founded the military power of Prussia, and who 
 Napoleon declared was a super-excellent tactician, and "the most 
 intrepid, most tenacious, and coolest of men." 
 
 *St. Pierre. 
 
21 
 
 Napoleon maintained at St. Helena that had not the Russian winter 
 been more severe than for many years, he would have held Moscow 
 and been master of the world ; and in the single struggle at Waterloo 
 how often does fate seem to defy science, and destiny sport with 
 genius ! But for the heavy rain the night before, which soddened 
 the soil and prevented Napoleon from attacking at day light; but for 
 Ney's sending the false intelligence that he had already occupied 
 Quatre Bras; but for the sunken and unseen road of Chain, which 
 swallowed up the French squadrons ; but for the accidental peasant 
 that guided Bulow on the right road ; but for the treacherous guide 
 that deceived the Emperor ; but for Grouchy's deafness, which pre- 
 vented his hearing the guns of Waterloo at Wavres ; but for the mis- 
 carriage of the order sent him to hurry up ; but for the Emperor's 
 indisposition on that day — Napoleon had been Czar of Europe — 
 England a province — and the "drama of the world essentially varied 
 in all its subsequent scenes." And see how fate thus conspiring 
 against him seems to waver in his arms. At four o'clock Welling- 
 ton's right wing is bent back on his centre ; Napoleon's glass sweeps 
 over the field ; a flash of triumph lights his eye ; a conquered world 
 looms up through the smoke ; he posts a courier to Paris to say 
 " Waterloo is won." At dark a bewildered, haggard, ruined man is 
 found by his friends on a field near Genappe — a discrowned ruler — a 
 waif of fortune — an imperial fugitive.* 
 
 Thus we find the dominion of military glory divided between two 
 monarchs, Skill and Chance — each at times seeming to have absolute 
 sway. No concatenation of favorable circumstances could have pro- 
 duced an Illiad or an Odyssey, an Ivanhoe or a Hamlet, a code of 
 laws or a steam engine, a picture, or a statue. Apples had fallen 
 for centuries — to none but a Newton did they suggest the theory that 
 governs the universe ; to none but a Galileo did the vibration of a 
 chandelier suggest the uses of the pendulum ; it was reserved for a 
 Watts to divine the powers of steam from a kettle boiling on a hearth ; 
 and for a Franklin to catch the lightnings with a school-boy's toy. 
 Genius alone can win victories in the fields of Literature and Art 
 and Science ; but on the field of Mars, Genius seems as often the 
 slave chained to the car of fortune, as the master holding the reins 
 in his hands. 
 
 Nor are the results of battles as capable of being as closely 
 
 "Victor lingo: Cosette. 
 
22 
 
 examined as the results of" other struggles, and eflForts. You may 
 read a book over, and over again, carefully subjecting its pretentions 
 to the most searching tests ; you may spend hours and days gazing 
 at the picture or the statue, until all the elements of form, color, atti- 
 tude, and expression have passed in review before a rigid deliberation. 
 But the battle is the thing of the past; no magic wand can reproduce 
 it before you. A mass of conflicting reports meets you, from which 
 the mind can no more reconstruct it than it can conceive the beauti- 
 ful proportions of a Grecian temple by looking upon a vast heap of 
 rent arches and broken columns. The marks of convulsion are all 
 that is left of it; a moment in which earthquake and thunderstorm 
 seemed to riot together amidst smoke, dust, shouts, blood, groans, has 
 gone, never to return. 
 
 Unwilling to patiently untie the knotty mass of facts, the multi- 
 tude generally cut through it, and say "let success decide for us." 
 " Nothing succeeds like success," was the pithy exclamation of Talley- 
 rand, and we are too often misled by that coquettish nymph, 
 
 "To give to dust that is a little o'er gilt 
 More laud than gilt o'er dusted." 
 
 "When the Knight of the olden time was knighted, it was with the 
 warning injunction to be " faithful, bold and fortunate,^^ and "Exitus 
 acta probat" was the inexorable motto by which his deeds were rated 
 
 National gratitude and vanity are generally too warm for the forma- 
 tion of cool impartial judgment. 
 
 A country in praising its hero, praises itself; its glory and his are 
 one, and it is impossible for it to view with any but partial feelings 
 one whose name is united with victory, and to whom, perhaps, its 
 existence is due. Whether or not he won by real merit, or might 
 have won in half the time, with half the expense, with half as great 
 a loss of men — it does not enquire. He did win ! enough ! He shall 
 be glorified. 
 
 The Northern masses do not remember that Grant poured out 
 blood and treasure in a battle as freely as he would pour out whiskey 
 and water into a cocktail. They do not reflect that any other common- 
 place piece of stolidity could have done as well with a people as 
 lavish of money, and a soldiery as lavish of blood. They join him 
 in quaffing the intoxicating draught of victory to the health of Uncle 
 Sam — they see not that there is death in the cup ! 
 
 Our own people were not guiltless of the idolatry of victory. 
 
23 
 
 They abused Sidney Johnston before Shiloh ; they wept for him 
 afterwards. 
 
 The manifold difficulties in the way of judgment led Marshal 
 Saxe, the Hero of Fontenoy, to declare, " Toutes les Sciences out des 
 prmcipes, la guerre seule n'eii point encored But to admit such an 
 opinion is to give way to skepticism. A greater than he (Napoleon) 
 tells us, that " all the great Captains of antiquity, and those who in 
 modern times have successfully retraced their footsteps, performed 
 vast achievements only by conforming with the rules and principles 
 of art; that is to say, by correct combinations, and by justly com- 
 paring the relations between means and consequences, efforts and 
 obstacles." Closely scanning the history of the campaigns and bat- 
 tles in which Jackson took part, we shall find, we think, that his 
 success was due to an observance of the principles of art, skillfully 
 adapted to the country he fought in, the troops he commanded, the 
 enemy he opposed, and the cause he fought for — in short, by the 
 means to his hand and the obstacles to be encountered. 
 
 While alluding to Jackson's other military performances in brief 
 terms, we shall examine his course with critical minuteness only in 
 the first battle of Manassas, and in the Valley campaign of 1862. In 
 the first we see him as a great soldier acting under orders ; in the 
 latter he appears as a great G-eneral, depending only upon himself. 
 
 The morning of the 21st of July, 1861, beheld the Northern and 
 Southern Armies confronting each other with only the narrow stream 
 of Bull Run dividing them. Along that stream the army of General 
 Beauregard was posted in eight brigades, covering the various fords 
 between Union Mills on the right flank, and Stone Bridge on the left 
 — a distance of five miles. Ewell was at Union Mills with his 
 brigade ; Jones at McLean's Ford above ) Longstreet next at Black- 
 burn's ; then Bonham at Mitchell's ; Cocke three miles higher at 
 Ball's; while Evans, with eight companies of his own regiment and 
 Wheat's battalion, stood guard at Stone Bridge. General Johnston 
 had already joined General Beauregard with about half of the Army 
 of the Shenandoah from Winchester, including Jackson's brigade ; 
 the rest were on the way. Impatient lest Patterson, who had cigh- 
 
24 
 
 teen thousand men with him on the upper Potomac, should unite 
 with McDowell before the coming battle, the Southern Generals had 
 determined to attack the enemy at day. 
 
 But during the night the rumble of artillery wheels gave intima- 
 tions that the enemy were in motion, and at dawn the boom of a heavy 
 gun opposite our left at Stone Bridge announced that McDowell was 
 manoeuvering for battle; and the remainder of our troops not having 
 arrived, the Southern Generals determined to await developments. 
 About half past eight o'clock it was discovered that the enemy had 
 made a wide detour, crossed Bull Run two miles above Stone Bridge, 
 and were bearing down on our left flank. With soldierly instinct. 
 Colonel Evans, with 800 men of his little force of 1,100 Carolinians 
 and Louisianians and two guns of Latham's battery, moved to meet 
 this column, and formed his line at the intersection of the Warrenton 
 turnpike and the Sudley road, some twelve hundred yards west of the 
 " Henry Hill," which famous spot is a few hundred yards to the 
 south-east and rear of Stone Bridge. He there met and sustained 
 himself " with skill and unshrinking courage"* against Burnside's 
 brigade, 3,500 strong, which force was a mere curtain to the march 
 of 30,000 men, led by McDowell himself, who were making a still 
 wider circuit to our rear. General Bee, with the seventh and eighth 
 Georgia regiments, the fourth Alabama, the second and two com- 
 panies of the eleventh Mississippi, were sent to support Evans, 
 and joining him, they held the enemy at bay, until, outflanked and 
 pressed back by dense masses of the enemy, they were forced to retire 
 to the Henry Hill. They were supported in their retreat by the arrival 
 of Hampton's legion, but were followed up rapidly by Heintzlemaij's 
 and Hunter's divisions. Key's and Sherman's brigades, and more than 
 twenty pieces of light artillery. 
 
 General Beauregard had, immediately upon discovering General 
 McDowell's flank movement, ordered his right wing to advance and 
 make a counter attack; but at 11 o'clock, being informed that his 
 order had miscarried, he resolved to meet the enemy on the left, and 
 we now find the columns of both armies drifting toward the vortex of 
 the fiery maelstrom, just commencing to boil on the Henry Hill. 
 
 Early in the morning General Jackson had been placed in the rear 
 of Generals Cocke and Bonham in order to support either as occasion 
 might require. At 10 o'clock he had been requested to replace 
 
 *Joliu»toii's Boport, p. 9. 
 
25 
 
 Evans at Stone Bridge, but as he moved to do so, heavy firing in the 
 direction of that officer's new position attracted him ; and without 
 waiting for orders he turned his brigade instantly towards it, sent 
 word to Bee and Evans that he was coming, and pushed forward with 
 all possible speed. As his column approached the Henry Hill, the 
 fugitives from the lines of Evans, Bee and Hampton were pouring 
 from it, telling the fugitive's story, not then understood, " they are 
 all cut to pieces ;" then came the hobbling and mangled wounded — a 
 seeming verification — while ahead the Hill spouted smoke and flame 
 like a volcano. Amidst such scenes the Virginians moved steadily, 
 with nonchalance and gaiety, joking each other, and picking the ripe 
 blackberries by the way. Jacklon at once formed his line under the 
 crest of the hill, with Imboden's, Stanard's, and Pendleton's bat- 
 teries, twelve guns in all, along his front. The remnants of Bee's, 
 Evans' and Hampton's men rallied on his right, but our line was 
 barely established when the enemy, who had massed their troops 
 upon the hill and concentrated upon it the fire of twenty-four guns, 
 moved forward in a compact mass, got a foothold at the Henry and 
 Kobinson houses, crowned the crest with infantry and cannon, and 
 poured into our bosoms a tempest of shot and shell and bullets. 
 
 How fitly has it been said that two armies are two wrestlers !* For 
 this little spot of earth the stalwart North and the lithe, active South 
 joined in a death struggle. Within one hundred yards of each 
 other, the opposing batteries blew their hot breath into each other's 
 faces ! Every clump of pines, every ditch, every fence sent forth 
 from unseen hands its hissing missiles — the lines writhed, like waves 
 of seething, red hot lava. During all this Jackson kept his brigade 
 lying down, taking the fire but not returning it; but never dis- 
 mounting from his horse himself, he moved everywhere — an ubiqui- 
 tous, invulnerable spirit — now directing his gunners, now cheering 
 his infantry. At three o'clock the Federals were gaining ground. 
 Johnston and Beauregard had come — the crisis of the day had come 
 — but our reinforcements — had not come ! At this time a shell 
 exploded a caisson of Pendleton's battery, and many horses, breaking 
 their traces, dashed wildly away amidst panic-stricken fugitives. 
 Another shell burst right in the ranks of the fourth and twenty- 
 seventh Carolina regiments, which were formed in double line behind 
 the battery, killing eight men, and horribly mutilating many others. 
 
 *Victor Hugo : Cosette. 
 D 
 
26 
 
 Simultaneously, Bee's, Evans' and Hampton's exhausted lines on the 
 right gave way, and the exultant enemy with fresh batteries and 
 regiments rushed over the crest, and seemed about to crush and 
 envelope Jackson's brigade. Bee — his face darkening with the gloom 
 of despair — galloped up to Jackson, and exclaimed: " General, they 
 are beating us back I" Jackson would not be beaten back. He 
 answered : " Then, sir, we will give them the bayonet !" Bee turned 
 to the little squad that still clustered around him, seized a banner, 
 and shouted to them : "There stands Jackson like a stonewall ! Rally 
 behind the Virginians ! Let us determine to die here, and we will 
 
 r conquer I" Jackson rode rapidly along the front of his men : 
 " Reserve your fire until you are close to them ! Rise and charga- 
 them!"/ It was Wellington at Waterloo: "Up Guards and at 
 them !/ It was answered likewise. The stonewall had been melted 
 as by electricity into a wave of fire — it rolled into the enemy's centre, 
 consuming battery and line ; the hill was cleared, the victory was 
 ours ; the artillery captured ; the infantry scattered ; the back of the 
 anaconda was broken ! The enemy reformed afterwards, but too 
 late ; for reinforcements had reached us, and soon striking the inco- 
 herent mass it dissolved before them, and the rest of the battle of 
 Manassas is a flight from ruin.* 
 
 
 * This account of the part taken by Jackson at Manassas does not concur 
 with the official reports or some of the histories. General Beauregard's 
 Report page 31, says that at two o'clock, he gave the order for the right of 
 the line contending for the Henry Hill to advance. To the forces which 
 had been engaged previously, there had been added only the eighth and 
 forty-ninth Virginia Regiments, the second Mississippi, and the sixth North 
 Carolina. He adds : "It was done with uncommon resolution and vigor, 
 and, at the same time, Jackson Brigade pierced the enemy's centre with the 
 determination and the spirit of men who fight for a sacred cause ; but it 
 suffered seriously." General B. states that the enemy rallied soon however, 
 " recovered their ground and guns, and renewed the offensive." 
 
 In the latter assertion, I am satisfied from recollection, and from concur- 
 rent opinions of others there, that he is mistaken. The Henry Hill was 
 never regained after Jackson carried it. General Beauregard says at about 
 three o'clock he ordered a second effort to carry the Hill — that the attack 
 was general, and the whole ground swept clear of the enemy, and the 
 plateau around the Henry and Robinson houses finally in our possession. 
 In this last attack all the additional regiments that had reached the field, 
 participated, and Smith and Early, arriving on the enemy's left and rear 
 just after it, followed up and secured its fruits. 
 
 The Robinson house, which is three hundred yards north of the Henry 
 Hill, may have changed hands as often as General B. states, and doubtless 
 
27 
 
 The great Conde said of William of Orange, after the bloody day 
 of SenefF, that he bore himself in all respects like an old General, 
 except in exposing himself like a young soldier. With a musket 
 ball in one hand and the blood streaming over his cuirass, he would 
 press into the very thickest of the fray, mindful only of victory. 
 
 The remark is literally and entirely applicable to Jackson at 
 Manassas. He had shown the cool judgment of an old General in 
 going to sustain an important point without orders ; in forming his 
 brigade deliberately under fire, and giving it time to rest before 
 charging; in holding it in check for two hours until he saw that the 
 moment for action had arrived ; in embracing that moment without 
 hesitation, and animating all to improve it. Pierced through the 
 hand with a bullet during the fight, he had not paused for a moment 
 even to bind the wound, but with all the enthusiasm of a young 
 soldier he had been everywhere that the battle raged hottest, inspir- 
 ing the weak-hearted and strengthening the strong with his presence. 
 His brigade had been worthy of its commander. It had marched 
 forty miles in less than twenty-four hours to get to the battle-field ; 
 after a short rest it had been double-quicked into fire ; it had with- 
 stood fire for two hours without returning it, and it had lost five hun- 
 dred out of its twenty-five hundred brave men. But it had won an 
 imperishable name. Bee, inspired by its commander, had baptized it 
 with his last words in immortality. It stands in history as the 
 " Stonewall Brigade," and the storms of ages will beat in vain against 
 that heroic rock of the battle ocean, which dashed into spray so often 
 the waves of federal fire. 
 
 After the battle General Jackson ardently desired to push the 
 enemy and essay the capture of Washington, but the Confederate 
 Generals Johnston and Beauregard concluded to do nothing, and 
 there was inaugurated that fatal policy of inactivity which had its 
 sequel at Appomattox Court-House. General Jackson was not called 
 
 did — but the Henry House remained in our hiands after being taken. Per- 
 haps this error arose from the fact that before the charge of Jackson's 
 Brigade, one of his regiments, the 33d, captured but quickly relinquished 
 a battery which ventured near a thicket in which it was lying. 
 
 Dr. Dabney does not notice this statement of Beauregard, hut his account 
 concurs with mine. 
 
28 
 
 upon to express his opinion in a council of war, nor were the other 
 subordinate generals; but he could not restrain the expression of his 
 desire from his immediate companions, and it was in accordance with 
 the policy which characterized his entire career. 
 
 McDowell's army was not only beaten — it was routed ; and our 
 losses had not impaired the efficiency of our troops. General John- 
 ston has attempted to excuse himself in a communication published 
 since the war, in which he says : " The substantial fruit of this victory 
 was the preservation of the Confederacy. No more could have been 
 hoped for. The pursuit of the enemy was not continued because our 
 cavalry (a very small force) was driven back by the 'solid resistance' 
 of the United States infantry. Its rear guard was an entire division, 
 which had not been engaged, and was twelve or fifteen times more 
 numerous than our two little bodies of cavalry. The infantry was 
 not required to continue the pursuit, because it would have been 
 harassing it to no purpose. It is well known that infantry, unencum- 
 bered by baggage trains, can easily escape pursuing cavalry."* 
 
 This apology is not in keeping with the usual candid good sense of 
 General Johnston. The rear guard he speaks of was Miles' division, 
 10,000 strong, which had during the day held the ridge between 
 Centreville and Blackburn's Ford, (Longstreet's position,) and which 
 had withdrawn to the heights of Centreville to cover the retreat of 
 McDowell. It there drew up in line of battle, only five miles from 
 our right wing, and its "solid resistance" consisted in its firing at a 
 handfuU of cavalry which reconnoitered it. How can General John- 
 ston say "solid resistance," when he confesses at the same time that 
 he did not send his infantry to test it? He stated with equal disin- 
 ecenuousness to Mr. Swinton that "in our condition pursuit could not 
 be thought of; for we were almost as much disorganized by our vic- 
 tory as the Federals by their defeat."-]- This is not true. Our army 
 was in admirable condition and spirit to follow. On the morning of 
 July 21st General Beauregard had 21,833 effective men and twenty- 
 nine cannon, and 6,000 bayonets and twenty guns of Johnston's 
 army had arrived. | Two thousand infantry under Smith and Elzey 
 had arrived during the fight, and we had, therefore, at the end of the 
 day, 29,833 men, and forty-nine pieces of artillery on the field. Com- 
 paratively, a small proportion had been engaged. General Johnston 
 
 *Alfrieud's Life of Jefferson Davis. 
 
 f Swinton : Army of the Potomac, p. 59. 
 
 JBoaurcganVs Report : Reports of Manassas, p. 11. 
 
29 
 
 says in his report: "The admirable character of our troops is incon- 
 tcstibly proved by the result of this battle ; especially ichen it is 
 remembered that little more than G,000 men of the Army of the 
 Shenandoah, with sixteen guns, and less than 2,000 of that of the 
 Potomac, with six guns, for full five hours successfully resisted 
 35,000 United States troops, with a powerful artillery and a superior 
 force of regular cavalry. Our forces engaged, gradually increasing 
 during the remainder of the contest, amounted to but at the 
 
 close of the battle." The blank might be filled by 10,000; for the 
 increase consisted in 2,000 under Smith and Elzey, and a few regi- 
 ments of Beauregard's army, not exceeding 2,000 more. We had, 
 therefore, (nearly) 20,000 fresh troops lying idle within five miles 
 of this " solid resistance" — troops, too, who had not marched or been 
 taxed by any arduous -service, and had nothing to demoralize them. 
 The Federal writers are of course prompt to adopt General John- 
 ston's theory, as the demoralization imputed to our troops is compli- 
 mentary to the fight their own had made, and palliates their 
 demoralization afterwards. But the proof that we were not demor- 
 alized to any very considerable extent is almost as strong as the proof 
 that they were. Says General McDowell in his report : " The retreat 
 soon became a rout, and this presently degenerated into a panic." 
 The extent of that panic has become a matter of world-wide noto- 
 riety. There can be no question as to the success of our army if it 
 had pushed on ; the only question is what was the proper course for 
 our generals under the lights before them. That the Federal army 
 had been terribly beaten was evident. One thousand four hundred 
 and sixty prisoners remained in our hands, twenty-eight pieces of 
 artillery, over five thousand muskets, and the field itself bore testi- 
 mony of a rout. Under these circumstances, we should have at 
 least pressed forward and tested the so-called " solidity" of that 
 resistance, which consisted in firing a few guns at a reconnoitering 
 body of cavalry. It was not and could not have been expected that 
 a handfull of cavalry could break an infantry division, and no serious 
 attack was made; but if our 20,000 fresh infantry and our fifty 
 pieces of artillery had been hurled against it, who can doubt but that 
 it would have been brushed away like a cobweb. No one could have 
 blamed Johnston had he attacked the rear guard and found it imprac- 
 ticable to destroy it; but he is greatly to be blamed for making no 
 effort. The apprehension that Patterson would soon join McDowell 
 ought only to have accelerated Johnston to complete the destruction 
 
30 
 
 of the latter before his arrival. Even had he arrived the united 
 force would not have exceeded 30,000 effectives, and no General of 
 revolutionary spirit ought to have hesitated to attack them, weary 
 and dispirited as they must have been, with 20,000 fresh men elated 
 with victory. 
 
 The joy of the South over what was done at Manassas, dulled its 
 criticism at the loss of the opportunity to do more ; but a calm view of 
 the question flash conviction upon the mind that Johnston and Beau- 
 regard were lacking in the insight that recognizes, and the boldness 
 that improves a lucky moment. " Opportunity," it has been said 
 "has hair in front; behind she is bald; if you catch her by the fore- 
 lock, you may hold her; but if suffered to escape Jupiter himself 
 cannot catch her asrain." Such is the moral of Manassas. 
 
 VIII 
 
 During the winter of 1861, Jackson was appointed a Major- 
 General and sent to the Valley of Virginia, and there in the spring 
 of 1862 he led his army through that series of marches and actions 
 which are known as "The Valley Campaign," and in which he 
 seemed, like the J'abled Knight of Old Castile, to bear an enchanted 
 lance which struck every enemy it aimed at, and struck only to 
 conquer. 
 
 A mere summary of the facts of the Valley Campaign is the best 
 tribute to the ability of its hero. 
 
 On the 9th of March, 1862, General J. E. Johnston fell back from 
 Centreville where he had confronted General McClellan during the 
 previous winter, and on the 11th inst. General Jackson fell back from 
 Winchester before General Banks who was advancing with 35,000 
 men; and halted at Mount Jackson on the "Valley pike" between 
 Winchester and Staunton, and forty miles from the former town. On 
 the 21st of the month he learned that Banks had detached 15,000 
 men under General Sedgwick to join the army opposed to General 
 Johnston in Eastern Virginia, and that the remainder, under General 
 Shields, was moving up the pike against him lie instantly put his 
 troops in motion. He marched 26 miles on the 22d inst., and 16 on 
 the 23d, and that evening attacked Shields at Kernstown, a little 
 hamlet three miles south of Winchester. Shields had 11,000 men 
 
31 
 
 in action. Jackson had only 2,742 infantry, 18 pieces of cannon, 
 and 290 cavalry. He did not drive the enemy from the field, but he 
 accomplished his main object of recalling Sedgwick's column from 
 its movement against General Johnston, crippled the enemy severely, 
 taught him a wholesome dread of the audacity and vehemence of his 
 attacks. General Shields was left like Pyrrhus after Heraclea, to feel 
 that another such victory would destroy him. He claimed that our 
 sufferings were terrible, but added, with soldierly candor, '' yet such 
 were their gallantry and high state of discipline that at no time 
 during the battle or pursuit did they give way to panic."* The 
 Southern people received the tidings of the battle with similar appre- 
 ciation, and the Confederate Congress passed a resolution of thanks 
 to Jackson and his soldiers for their gallant services. 
 
 After the battle, Jackson retired to the vicinity of Harrisonburg, 
 and the two armies lay quiescent until the 1st of May, on which day 
 he received a reinforcement of General Ewell's division from the 
 army of General Johnston which swelled his force to about 15,000 
 men of all arms — and he now prepared to resume hostilities. 
 
 Jackson was now menaced from two points. Banks confronted 
 him from the north with 20,000 men, while Milroy, on the moun- 
 tains west of Staunton, lay off on his left flank with 8,000 men, who 
 were opposed by the single brigade of General Edward Johnson. 
 Leaving Ewell to manage Banks, Jackson marched rapidly up the 
 Valley, passed through Staunton, united with Edward Johnson, and 
 on the 9th of May dispatched the result to Richmond : 
 
 " God blessed our arms with victory at McDowell yesterday." 
 
 Milroy retreated precipitously into West Virginia, and Jackson 
 returned with his flying light infantry to renew his attentions to 
 Banks. During the rest of May, he was continuously marching and 
 fighting. On the 23d he drove Banks through Front Royal, and 
 captured with little loss 700 prisoners and 2 cannon. On the 25th 
 he pursued him through Winchester. On the 28th he dispersed his 
 rear guard on the banks of the Potomac. On the 30th of May, 
 having retired to the vicinity of Winchester, he had reason to appre- 
 hend that Fremont, from the northwest was endeavoring, with a large 
 force, to gain his rear near Strasburg. Moving at noon that day, he 
 reached Strasburg the next, having marched the astonishing distance 
 of fifty miles in 40 hours, with an army encumbered by 1 ,500 wagons, 
 more than 50 artillery carriages, and 2,300 prisoners. 
 
 * Shields' Report. 
 
3^ 
 
 Within tweuty-two days he had marched over 350 miles, fought 
 two battles and six combats; with only 12,000 men, had defeated two 
 armies aggregating 30,000 men, had captured 3,000 prisoners, 1,000 
 stand of arms; had supplied his medical and ordnance trains, and 
 fed and clothed his hungry and naked troops on captured stores ; 
 had lost only 68 killed, 329 wounded, and 3 missing, and had finally 
 extricated himself and his spoils from a dangci-ous position. 
 
 None can doubt that men capable of such marches were as worthy 
 of the soubriquet of "foot cavalry" as when at bay they deserved 
 to be called "a stonewall :" and well might their general have told them, 
 as Napoleon told the Army of Italy, that he had rather gain victories 
 at the expense of their legs than their blood. 
 
 These are pregnant facts, though not exhibited in a critical arrange- 
 ment. Cross Keys and Port Republic, the twin battles on the Shen- 
 andoah, remain to be recounted as the fit climax to terminate the 
 Valley campaign, as the broad and solid but delicately wrought 
 Corinthian capital crowns the stately marble column. 
 
 To appreciate them it is necessary to glance at the topographical 
 features of the country adjacent, and the relation of Jackson's army 
 to the Army ^of Northern Virginia which under Lee was guarding 
 Richmond. 
 
 A glance at the map will show that the operations of all the armies 
 in eastern Virginia at this time were embraced within a parallelogram 
 of which the Potomac from Williamsport to Washington was the 
 northern, and the Central Railroad between Staunton and Richmond 
 the southern side; the Valley pike, a broad paved highway from 
 Williamsport to Staunton, the western, and the Richmond and Fred- 
 ericksburg Railroad and the Potomac river, uniting Richmond and 
 Washington, the eastern side. Jackson, it will thus be seen, while 
 guarding the Central Railroad by his position in the Valley, had so to 
 manoeuvre as to be able, in the event of a necessary retreat, to join 
 his forces with the utmost rapidity with the main army of Lee at 
 Richmond. 
 
 Turning to the immediate scene of operations, we find him on the 
 evening of the 1st of June at Strasburg with about 15,000 men. 
 Fremont was immediately in front of him with 20,000 followers,* 
 
 *The north and south forks of the Shenandoah unite at Front Royal, and 
 the north fork crosses the Valley pike several times, but its course did not 
 materially affect the campaign. 
 
33 
 
 and Shields, with about 7,000, was at Front Royal, on his right flank, 
 but separated from him by the north and south forks of the Shenan- 
 doah river. On that evening Jackson commenced a retreat up the 
 Valley pike, followed by Fremont, while Shields continued to move 
 on the eastern side of the south fork of the Shenandoah, which flows 
 parallel to the main pike. Had Shields and Fremont combined at 
 once, their overwhelming numbers would have indeed presented a 
 terrible head to Jackson, but a stream swollen by spring rains was 
 between them, their pontoons had been destroyed in a retreat shortly 
 previous, and Jackson's manoeuvres were all directed with a view of 
 keeping them apart, and seizing any opportunity of taking advantage 
 of their separation. Having succeeded in destroying the bridges on 
 the south fork in the course of his retreat, we find him on the 6th of 
 June as far up the Valley as Harrisonburg, closely pressed by Fre- 
 mont; and on that day, while gallantly bringing up his rear guard, 
 fell Ashby — that bright ideal of a soldier, in whose character were 
 beautifully blended the romantic hues of chivalry with the solid 
 virtues of a Southern patriot.* Even amidst the clash of arms the 
 involuntary tear starts to the eye over his early grave : 
 
 "Brief, brave and glorious was his young career — 
 His mourners were two hosts, his friends and foes ; 
 And fitly may the stranger lingering there 
 Pray for his gallant spirit's bright repose — 
 For he was Freedom's champion ; one of those. 
 The few in number, who had not o'erstep't 
 The charter to chastise which she bestows 
 On such as wield her weapons. He had kept 
 The whitness of his soul, and thus men o'er him wept." 
 
 From Harrisonburg Jackson diverged eastward, and leaving Ewell 
 with his division at " Cross Keys," a country cross roads nine miles 
 distant, he moved five miles further on, and halted near the village of 
 
 *Ashby was interred in the graveyard at the University of Virginia, but 
 his remains were removed after the war to his mother's home in Fauquier, 
 In his report, Jackson thus alluded to his untimely end: "An official report 
 is not an appropriate place for more than a passing notice of the dis- 
 tinguished dead ; but the close relation which General Ashby bore to ray 
 command for most of the previous twelve months will justify me in saying 
 that as a partizan officer I never knew his superior. His daring was pro- 
 verbial ; his powers of endurance almost incredible ; his tone of character 
 heroic, and his sagacity almost intuitive in divining the purposes and move- 
 ments of the enemy."— Reports of the Army of Northern Virginia^ Vol. I, 
 •page !J5. 
 
 E 
 
34 
 
 Port Republic, which nestles in the fork formed by the North and 
 South rivers which there combine into the south branch of the Shen- 
 andoah. The South river is there fordablc, but the North river could 
 be crossed only by a bridge ; and remaining on the north-west side of 
 that stream, Jackson awaited the movements of Fremont in that 
 direction, and guarded the bridge from the approach of Shields from 
 the north-east. Early* on the morning of Sunday, the 8th day of 
 June, Jackson, with a few attendants, crossed the North river into 
 Port Republic, and while there the vanguard of Shields made its 
 appearance, and rushing rapidly across the ford of South river, cap- 
 tured two of his staflE", and placed a piece of artillery at the southern 
 end of the bridge. Thus cut off from his soldiers and surrounded by 
 his enemies, Jackson was in a perilous quandary. But his ingenious 
 audacity saved him. Galloping up to the commander of the gun at 
 the bridge he exclaimed in a tone of authority : " Who told you to 
 place this gun here, sir? Remove it instantly to yonder hill." Pre- 
 suming him to be of course a Federal officer of rank, the artillerist 
 obeyed his order promptly, and Jackson bounded over the bridge to 
 his camps. Quickly getting his men under arms he hurried back to the 
 bridge, leading the thirty-seventh Virginia regiment, the first to 
 hand, and directing its charge, it swept over the bridge, and, losing 
 but two men from the enemy's fire, captured the gun, an-d cleared the 
 village of the adventurous advance guard which a moment before 
 held the army at its mercy. This little affair had scarcely transpired 
 when Shield's army appeared in force on the eastern side of the 
 south fork of the Shenandoah, and at 10 o'clock, a. m., firing in the 
 direction of Cross Keys announced that Fremont had come in contact 
 with Ewell. Jackson's situation was critical in the extreme. His 
 army, in two divisions, his own and Ewell's, aggregated a little over 
 12,000 men, and two armies were now closing in upon him, and were 
 within hearing of each other's guns. Crowning the hills on the 
 north-east bank of the river at Port Republic with cannon, and making 
 as great a show as his meagre forces could against Shields, he galloped 
 at midday to Ewell's lines at Cross Keys and beheld him holding Fre- 
 mont gallantly at bay. Returning quickly, he sent Ewell two brigades, 
 Taylor's of Ewell's division, (which he had taken to strengthen him- 
 
 *This story is told in the Life of Jackson, by an Ex-Cadet, and in Doo- 
 lady's also. It is not mentioned in Dr. Dabney's or in Cooke's, and this 
 fact may throw some doubt on its authenticity. It has been generally cir- 
 culated, however, and I have never heard it contradicted. 
 
35 
 
 self early ia the morning,) and Patton's, of his own, and with these 
 additions the noble Ewell, who had already repulsed Fremont's 
 attacks, advanced upon him, drove in his skirmish line, and keeping 
 up a bold demonstration, intimidated him by an appearance of strength 
 and desire for battle. Shields, bluffed during the day by Jackson's 
 energetic preparations at Port Republic, had subsided into inactivity, 
 and with matters in this attitude night closed. 
 
 Jackson had so far thwarted the peril that hung over him, but it 
 was still imminent, and in all probability would burst upon him on 
 the morrow. To retreat was to leave Fremont and Shields to unite 
 and follow him. To stand still was to permit them to crush him by 
 sheer weight of numbers. He solved the problem by resolving to be 
 himself the assailant. Causing a foot bridge of wagons to be con- 
 structed during the night across the ford of the South river, he with- 
 drew Ewell's division from Cross Keys, leaving only Patton's and 
 Trimble's brigades to make a bold face before Fremont, and crossing 
 the river early on the morning of the 9th, he attacked Shields with 
 fury. The battle was hard fought, but he drove the Federals from 
 the field and captured 450 prisoners and nine pieces of artillery. 
 Sending his cavalry in pursuit of the beaten army, he withdrew 
 Patton and Trimble from Fremont's front in the evening, destroyed 
 the bridge over North river, and thus left Fremont to gnash his teeth 
 in impotent rage while Shields fled in disaster. 
 
 Jackson now retired to Brown's Gap, a few miles distant, from 
 which point he could easily retreat into the interior if he found it 
 necessary, or return as assailant. Fremont remained a day or two 
 at Port Republic when hearing how Shields had been used up, he 
 also retreated hastily down the valley, leaving his sick, wounded, and 
 hospitals behind him, and Jackson to prepare for his brilliant march 
 to assist Lee at Richmond. 
 
 The campaign had much a deeper significance than appears from 
 following its marches, and battles. The strokes of Jackson not only 
 broke the limbs they fell upon, but shocked the whole system of 
 hostile operations. 
 
 On the 25th of May when he drove Banks through Winchester, 
 McDowell's corps numbering forty-one thousand men, and one hun- 
 dred cannon had advanced eight miles south of Fredricksburg on its 
 way to join McClellan. who was then investing Richmond. McClel- 
 land had thrown forward his right wing to Hanover Junction to meet 
 
36 
 
 him, and they were but fifteen miles apart. The very next day they 
 were to combine and assail Johnston with resistless numbers. But 
 just then the news of Jackson's advance was flashed to Washington, 
 McDowell was instantly recalled, and 20,000 of his men were hur- 
 ried off to the Shenandoah Valley to stay the terrible hand of Jack- 
 son.* The fairest and most reliable critic of the war observes "that 
 without gaining a single tactical victory Jackson had yet achieved a 
 great strategic victory, for by manoevering 15,000 men he had suc- 
 ceeded in neutralizing a force of 60,000 men."-}- When he struck 
 McClellan at Kichmond a month later, McDowell petrified by his 
 name, laid motionless at Fredricksburg — afraid to uncover the front 
 of Washington, and we may justly confirm the judgment of the same 
 critic that " it is perhaps not too much to say he saved Richmond." 
 
 I once heard an officer ask General Ewell what he thought of 
 Jackson's generalship in this campaign. He replied in his brusque 
 impetuous manner : " Well sir when he commenced it, I thought him 
 crazy, before he ended it, I thought him inspired." The campaign 
 was not one of large numbers, but its manceuvers were so rapid, so 
 bold, so energetic, and so delicately calculated that they could only 
 have, been executed by a master of the Art of War. Those who at 
 its beginning thought its movements erratic, and called Jackson 
 "crazy" soon found that there was a "method in his madness," like 
 that of the Macedonian madman which brought order from chaos, 
 and had its sequel in victory. 
 
 Jackson had carved his way to enduring fame and the "Valley 
 
 * For these facts see Swinton's Army of the Potomac p. 125-6. His com- 
 ments are worth quoting "In vain General McClellan urged the real motion 
 of the raid — to prevent reinforcements from reaching him. Deaf to all 
 sounds of reason, the war-council at "Washington, like the Dutch States- 
 General, of whom Prince Eugene said that "always interfering they were 
 always dying with fear" heard only the reverberations of the guns of the 
 redoubtable Jackson. To head off Jackson, if possible to catch Jackson, 
 seemed now the one important thing ; and the result of the cogitations of 
 the Washington strategists was the preparation of what the President 
 called a "trap" for Jackson — a "trap" "for the wily fox who was master 
 of every gap and gorge of the Valley !" 
 
 We have seen already what became of the trap. 
 
 f Mr. Swinton is as palpably mistaken in saying that Jackson had not 
 gained a "single tactical victory" as General Johnston was (see ahead) in 
 saying Jackson was not a great strategist. Port Republic and Cross-Keys 
 beautifully combine the excellencies of tactical and strategic genius. 
 
37 
 
 campaign" will be preserved in history as a model tor the military 
 student to study, and a feat for mankind to admire.* 
 
 "His schemes of war were sadden, unforseen — 
 Inexplicable both to friend and foe ; 
 It seems as if some momentary spleen 
 Inspired the project and compelled the blow. 
 And most his fortune and succcess were seen — 
 With means the most inadequate and low ; 
 Most master of himself and least encumbered, 
 When overmatched, entangled and outnumbered." 
 
 IX 
 
 No general ever evinced a truer appreciation of the value of time 
 in military operations, and in no war has time ever been so valuable 
 an element as in that for Southern Independence. We fought against 
 time. We had a limited quantity of ammunition ; we had the mini- 
 mum quantity of food ; we had only a certain number of men. 
 General Grant was glad to swap five men for one of Lee's; he could 
 wait six months for a victory. An army or an hour lost with us was 
 lost forever — with the Federals spring-time brought reinforcements 
 and leisure. "I have observed," said Napoleon, "that it is the 
 quarters of hours that decide the fate of battles." Jackson never 
 lost time ! He struck the enemy to-day — he did not wait for him to 
 rest and reconstruct to-morrow — he followed him and struck him 
 again while stunned, sore and exhausted. The old fogies, and the 
 red-tape men of the army swore he was crazy when he was marching 
 to Romney after the Yankees in the winter of 1861, while the 
 Yankees themselves, and the rest of our own army were nestling so 
 cosily in winter quarters — but he was seasoning his oak in winter to 
 stand the storms of spring. The manner in which dulled stupidity 
 talked of him then and at the beginning of the Valley Campaign, 
 was very much in the strain of the old Hungarian officer who ridi- 
 culed Napoleon's strategy after he had beaten the Austrians out of 
 Italy. " Things are going on as ill, and as irregularly as possible," said 
 
 * Dr. Dabney (p. 429) says "within forty days he had marched four hun- 
 dred miles, fought four pitched battles — defeating four separate armies, 
 with numerous combats and skirmishes, sent to the rear three thousand 
 five-hundred prisoners, killed and wounded a still larger number of the 
 enemy, and defeated or neutralized forces three times as numerous as his 
 own," 
 
38 
 
 the old Martinet. "The French have got a young general who 
 knows nothing of the regular rules of war; he is sometimes in our 
 front, sometimes on our flank, sometimes on the rear. There is no 
 supporting such a gross violation of the rules,"* And this, as Scott 
 observes, somewhat resembles the charge that foreign tacticians have 
 brought against the English that they gained victories by continuing, 
 with their insular ignorance and obstinacy, to fight on long after the 
 period when, if they had known the rules of war, they ought to 
 have considered themselves as completely defeated. Jackson was 
 like the young French general when he attacked ; he was like the 
 obstinate Englishmen when he stood at bay. 
 
 On the front, on the flank, on the rear of the Yankees — he seemed 
 often to happen at the very point where they least expected to find 
 him, and often to fly from point to point so fiist that like a moving 
 brand he made around them a circle of fire. His infantry was called 
 by the army "Jackson's foot cavalry," and " the foot cavalrymen" 
 jestingly declared that he was greater than Moses. "Moses," they 
 said, "took forty years to lead the Israelites through the Wilderness 
 with manna to feed them on ; old Jackson would have double-quicked 
 through it on half rations in three days." A wag sent him a letter 
 addressed, " Stone W. Jackson, Esqr., somewhere or somewhere else." 
 
 Prompt selection of the point to aim it, all the energies roused up 
 to hit it, not an instant's hesitation as to striking, and striking 
 again — we see in every action. After the battle of Manassas, while 
 our other generals were talking about rations for the men, and about 
 the "solid resistance" of one division of United States infantry at 
 Centreville, Jackson was in favor of pushing on to Washington at 
 once — only thirty miles off, knowing very well that there was plenty 
 of rations there, and that the resistance of that infantry would not 
 be less solid when Patterson's 18,000 had strengthened it, and when 
 it had recovered from the dismay produced by a routed army fleeing 
 through and all around it. He always followed up his victories in 
 the Valley, for there was no superior ofiicer there to prevent him. 
 He was in favor of pursuing McClellan when he was cowering under 
 his gunboats at Harrison's Landing. He was in favor of crushing 
 Burnside when we had him under our heel on the banks of the Eap- 
 pahannock. He attacked Hooker at Chancellorsville the instant our 
 troops got into line of battle, and the last order which he ever gave 
 on the field was "tell A. P. Hill to press right on." 
 
 * Scott's Napoleon I, v. 318. 
 
39 
 
 We liave heard some of our timid generals defended for not push- 
 ing the enemy, on the ground that they held back out of regard for 
 their men. We have only to answer that they had false and narrow 
 views of what was best for their men. If they had concentrated 
 their forces, made and followed up a vigorous, well sustained attack, 
 and pressed every advantage they might have lost more fearfully 
 during any given half hour, but they would have saved the terrible 
 waste of prolonged campaigns and decimating camp diseases, and 
 the oft-repeated losses of minor battles, and would not only have 
 gained a field, but garnered up the fruits of victory. The fact is, 
 that the terrific system of war which hurls masses of men upon one 
 point — mass after mass, and is so often condemned as brutal, is the 
 most humane in the end, because the most effective. Napoleons, 
 CcGsars, Jacksons are not the spend-thrifts, but the wise economists 
 of human life ; and those cautious and over-sensitive captains who 
 are afraid to push the battle lest somebody be hurt, are mere misers, 
 " penny-wise and pound-foolish " — they guard their treasure like the 
 unfaithful steward by burying it in the ground, and rendering it in- 
 capable of producing good either to themselves or others. 
 
 The general should have tender feelings, but he should have a will 
 capable of restraining them when to indulge them is ruin. "0 that 
 I had time to weep " exclaims Napoleon in a note to a mother, after 
 battle announcing that her son was slain, but it would have been not 
 less a crime than a weakness for him to have paused to weep over 
 one mother's son when thousands of others stood in peril, and depen- 
 ded on him to shield them. 
 
 Those military men who claim exoneration for failure on account 
 of tender feelings, are on a par with surgeons who faint at the sight 
 of blood. They have mistaken their calling, and only reveal their 
 weak nerves and their weak heads. They play the hero like Bottom 
 played the lion in Pyramus and Thisbe promising to modulate his 
 voice in order not to frighten the ladies : " I will roar you gently as 
 any sucking dove ; I will roar you gently an'twere any nightingale." 
 Doves and nightingales are excellent things in their way ; but when 
 we send for lions we prefer that they should bring their roar and 
 their claws with them, and that they should not indulge themselves 
 on the battle field in cooing and billing. Some of our military lions 
 succeeded admirably in not frightening the ladies — or anybody else. 
 
 Others of our generals apologized for not pursuing after battle on 
 account of a lack of wagons, and bridges, and rations. That was 
 
40 
 
 one of the excuses made after the first battle of Manassas. Jackson 
 forded rivers, or improvised bridges, and did without wagons and 
 rations until he caught the enemy and captured them. " What cre- 
 ates difficulty," said Napoleon, " in the profession of the land com- 
 mander is the necessity of feeding so many men and animals. If he 
 allows himself to be guided by the commissaries he will never stir, 
 and all his expeditions will fail." Whenever the majority of the gen- 
 erals in the late war started on an expedition a commissary pulled 
 them back by the coat tail. When Jackson started he kicked the 
 commissary out of the way and went without him. 
 
 His own cooks were like those of Alexander, a march before day 
 to dress his dinner, a light dinner to prepare his supper — and as for 
 supper, he took that next day ; and his troops fared like him. Vic- 
 tory, however, was generally his commissary, and kept him well sup- 
 plied from the enemy's camps. 
 
 After Jackson had taken Harper's Ferry, he conversed with a 
 group of captive officers. "Has McClellan a drove of cattle with 
 him?" he asked. "Yes," was the reply — "a large one." "Well," 
 said the General, "I can whip any army that travels with a drove of 
 cattle" — alluding both to the sluggishness it necessitated on their 
 part, and to the keen appetites of his men. General Banks was 
 oftener spoken of as the commissary general of Jackson than as his 
 adversary in the field. His trains had filled our haversacks so often 
 that whenever the head of the column turned down the Valley, the 
 jest ran along the lines : "Lee is out of rations again, and Jackson 
 is detailed to call on the commissary general." 
 
 X 
 
 Plain common sense, moral courage, and decision of character, 
 " the will to do, the soul to dare," were the germs of all Jackson's 
 great deeds. His will was never surpassed. As a mere pulp of 
 paper can be driven through oaken plank when a powerful combusti- 
 ble is exploded behind it, so may an ordinary mind penetrate the 
 most unyielding obstacles when propelled by a powerful determina- 
 tion ; while in an infants hand the most terrible projectile becomes 
 only a dangerous toy. 
 
 An English essayist, Foster, tells us of a father who had two sons, 
 both of whom had been condemned to die for some capital crime. The 
 
41 
 
 king of their country in pity for the old man sent him word that one 
 of his sons should be spared, and that he must make the selection 
 within a certain hour. The old man first thought of the talents of 
 one son, and then of the graces and affection of the other, preferring 
 each as his virtues arose before his mind, but unable to decide 
 between them ; and thus in an agony of suspense and hesitation, the 
 hour went by and he was roused from deliberation by the announce- 
 ment that the law had been enforced, and both were dead. We 
 could recall several instances during the late war, in which com- 
 manding generals acted with similar weakness. When they were 
 approached by columns in different directions, instead of instantly 
 striking one, they stood in painful trepidation between the two — now 
 calculating the chances of defeating one, now reconnoitering and 
 faintly skirmishing with the other. In a short time the two united, 
 and they were then either beaten by largely superior numbers, or 
 forced to make a " masterly retreat " under hot pressure, and write 
 an elaborate official report to show that they had abandoned the field 
 in strict accordance with the art of war. Thus it is with the indeci- 
 sive man. He deliberates when the time for deliberation is past, and 
 when any decisive action is better than none. The opportunity is 
 gone forever, and no expenditure of treasure or blood, and no 
 resource of genius can restore it. In such emergencies Jackson's 
 mind quickly formed a plan, and roused up all its energies for its 
 execution — and then came into play that sublime courage which like 
 Cassar's, was twin-born with danger, and taught danger that it was 
 more dangerous than he. 
 
 Mere physical courage is a common quality. The gentleman is 
 brave from instinct, and the hireling from fear of his officer. In the 
 South especially, personal daring is so general a characteristic, that the 
 lack of it was exceptional, and every field of the late war was illus- 
 trated by astonishing feats of valor which did not attract the atten- 
 tion they deserved, because it was impossible to make discrimina- 
 tions and they were really " too numerous to mention." And in many 
 cases if any fault could be found with our troops, it was that fear- 
 lessness degenerated into recklessness, and the hot-blooded South- 
 erner became 
 
 "More brave than firm, and more inclined to dare 
 And die at once — than wrestle with despair." 
 
 But the courage which does not shrink from responsibility, and 
 r 
 
42 
 
 remains self-poised and imperturbable under sudden dangers is 
 amongst all peoples a rare personal characteristic. 
 
 "As to moral courage," said Napoleon, "I have rarely met with the 
 two o'clock in the morning kind. I mean unprepared courage, that 
 which is necessary to an unexpected occasion, and which in spite of 
 unforeseen events leaves full freedom of judgment and decision." 
 That two o'clock in the morning courage existed in Jackson to per- 
 fection. He never lost the "full freedom of judgment and decision,"* 
 but himself declared that "he was conscious of a mere perfect com- 
 mand of all his faculties when under fire than at any other time," 
 and his whole career is filled with striking illustrations of that self- 
 possession which calmly met the most startling and perilous emer- 
 gencies, and disposed of them with easy and decisive promptitude. 
 It shone at Manassas, at Kernstown, at Fort Republic — it shone 
 everywhere. When others lost faith he stood firm in a faith that 
 removed mountains; when lines were broken, plans disorganized, 
 resources of skill were exhausted, and the fugitives' wild cry, "all is 
 lost," arose over a mangled and bleeding field — still with lip firm, 
 with eye fixed, he clung to his post with the tenacity of destiny until 
 reilnimated by his example cowards became men, men became heroes, 
 and heroes seemed to tower into demigods — and victory was plucked 
 from the gulf of despair. 
 
 /In point of talent Jackson was surpassed by many of the generals 
 who fought with and against him. He was inferior to Johnston in 
 intellectual power and in ability for laying complicated and far- 
 reaching schemes. His mind was not so broad and capacious as 
 ■ Lee's. He was not so scientific as Beauregard, or so variously 
 accomplished as McClellan. He had not the mental vigor or scope of 
 Early. But he more happily combined than any the cool audacity, 
 the imperturbable resolution, and the wonderful earnestness which 
 struck a terror into his enemy's hearts that half conquered them 
 before battle, and an enthusiasm into his soldiers which made them 
 irresistible. This balance of common sense and courage is worth all 
 other qualities whatsoever) Napoleon, discoursing on the requisites of 
 a military commander, remarks : "We rarely find combined together 
 all the qualities requisite to constitute a great general. The object 
 most desirable is that a man's judgment should be in equilibrium 
 with his physical character or courage. This is what we may call 
 
 *Dabnoy, 1). 02. 
 
43 
 
 being squared both by base and perpendicular. If courage be in the 
 ascendency, a general will rashly undertake that which he cannot 
 execute ; on the contrary, if his character or courage be inferior to 
 his judgment he will not venture to carry any fiieasure into effect. 
 The sole merit of the Viceroy Eugene consisted in this equilibrum. 
 This, however, was sufficient to render him a very distinguished 
 man." We readily recognize this equilibrium in Jackson. He 
 retreated from Kernstown. He advanced to McDowell. He had 
 the precaution to retire from Winchester, and the audacity to assail 
 at Cross Keys and Manassas. He cautiously vacated Pope's front at 
 Cedar Mountain, and with boldness bordering on rashness he hung 
 upon his rear at Manassas, and charged Hooker in reverse at Chan- 
 cellorsville. His actions were the exemplication of the inscription 
 on the gates of the ancient city : " Be bold ! Be evermore bold ! 
 Be not too hold r^ 
 
 Lord Macaulay expressed in different language the same idea 
 expressed by Napoleon : " An unlearned person," he says, "would be 
 inclined to suspect that the military art is no very profound mystery ; 
 that its principles are principles of plain good sense ; and that a 
 quick eye, a cool head, and a stout heart do more to make a General 
 than all the diagrams of Jomini."* So we have the greatest of 
 generals and the best of critics on a common platform. The truth 
 is, the faculty for commanding men, and for leading enterprises "of 
 great pith and moment" is barely akin to those brilliant talents which 
 shine in devising theories for others to execute, or executing those 
 which have been devised for them. Many a learned and eloquent 
 barrister who can wring tears and verdicts from jurymen, becomes a 
 worthless pedagogue when elevated to the responsibility of the bench. 
 Many an ingenious diplomatist who exposes the folly of cabinets and 
 parliaments, becomes irresolute and impracticable when made prime 
 minister and told to inaugurate a policy of his own. And many a 
 highly educated and intelligent officer, who would storm a fort gal- 
 lantly, and who has all the theories of tactics, strategy, fortification, 
 and engineering at his fingers' ends, sinks into confusion and helpless- 
 ness when the destinies of an army are placed in his keeping and the 
 boom of cannon tells him that the hour of trial is at hand. 
 
 The man of knowledge and the man of action are of an entirely 
 different mould. Knowledge is invaluable in directing action, but 
 
 •'Artirlo on IlamiKlcn : Essays, ji. 169. 
 
44 
 
 common sense availing itself of the knowledge of others is an 
 excellent substitute ; while on the other hand knowledge, unless set 
 on fire by action, is nothing more than so much powder stored away 
 in a magazine. The difference between the learned plodder and the 
 gifted man of action was admirably illustrated by John Randolph, of 
 Roanoke, in the fable of the huntsman and the caterpillar, which has 
 a savor of real ^sopian salt. A caterpillar comes to a fence ; he 
 crawls to the bottom of the ditch and over the fence — some one of 
 his hundred feet always in contact with the object upon which he 
 moves. A gallant horseman, at a flying leap, clears both ditch and 
 fence. "Stop," says the caterpillar, "you are too flighty — you want 
 connection and continuity; it took me an hour to get over; you 
 can't be as sure as I am, who have never quitted the subject, that 
 you have overcome the difliculty and are fairly over the fence." 
 "Thou miserable reptile," replies the huntsman, "if like you I 
 crawled over the earth slowly and painfully, should I ever catch a 
 fox or be anything more than a wretched caterpillar ?" The learned 
 caterpillars of the war when they approached an obstacle generally 
 wasted two or three days in reconnoiteriug it, and their skirmishers, 
 like so many hundred feet, felt the position with the utmost caution. 
 After the enemy had entirely recovered from surprise and had fully 
 fortified and prepared for them, they crawled up to the attack with 
 elaborate dullness, and after getting a good threshing made a " master- 
 ly retreat." They never caught a federal fox, and despite their 
 excellent ofiicial reports were never anything but wretched cater- 
 pillars. Jackson comes with his army like a gallant huntsman on a 
 well-bred hunter, and the ear of the startled picket had scarcely 
 caught the clatter of a hoof, or the yelp of the hound, ere he and 
 his pack of hungry, ragged, cheering rebels was upon them. ( The 
 enemy began to fear him as the fox the bloodhound.j In his very 
 name they scented a portent of danger and heard a presage of victory. 
 The French nurses, we are told, frightened their children with 
 stories of " Marlbrook," and the Orientals, when their horses started, 
 imagined that they saw the shadow of Richard Cocur de Leon crossing 
 tlieir path.* The Yankees, when they heard the ominous words : 
 HjTackson is moving,'/ felt the dread instinct of a mysterious 
 danger, which only warned with fatal blows, and hied away to their 
 fortifications. 
 
 ^•Alison's Marlboroiigh. 
 
45 
 
 It cannot with any propriety be said that "luck" was the cause of 
 Jackson's successes. They were not the fruits of a single victory, or 
 of one campaign, or of favorable circumstances; but of vigorous 
 campaigns following in swift succession and won through desperate 
 battles, terrible obstacles, and a wide variety of hazardous adventures. 
 The true test of a general, Napoleon declared, was not found in his 
 escaping from difficulties and disasters, but in his coping boldly with 
 and proving superior to them. Jackson was often environed with diffi- 
 culties apparently insuperable and confronted with disaster. He 
 invariably cut through difficulties, and changed disaster with the 
 alchemy of genius into victory. His famous daring flank movements 
 were never repeated, and the "luck" of striking the enemy in the 
 rear and beating him with little loss, never afterward attended us — 
 for the cause of that luck had departed. 
 
 You might as well say that luck produced the battle pictures of 
 Horace Vernet as that it won Jackson's victories. Without brush 
 and paint — without men and arms — the artist and the soldier could 
 have done nothing. But many have had brush and paint — many 
 have had more men and more arms — but none have brought forth 
 from them such picitures, such victories. 
 
 One of his own soldiers threw into rough verse, a sketch of Jack- 
 son's way :* 
 
 Come stack arms, men ; pile on the rails ; 
 
 Stir up the camp fires bright ; 
 No matter if the canteen fails, 
 
 We'll make a roaring night. 
 Here Shenandoah brawls along. 
 There lofty Blue Ridge echoes strong 
 To swell the Brigade's roaring song. 
 Of Stonewall Jackson's way ! 
 
 We see him now — the old slouched hat. 
 
 Cocked o'er his eye askew; 
 The shrewd dry smile, the speech so pat, 
 
 So calm, so blunt, so true. 
 The "Blue-Light Elder" knows them well: 
 Says he "that's Banks — he's fond of shell. 
 Lord save his soul ! we'll give him " well 
 
 That's Stonewall Jackson's way ! 
 
 *This lyric came from an unknown lyre. " Des Rivierres" is the name 
 appended in print, but who that is we have no idea. 
 
46 
 
 Silence! ground arms ! Kneel all ! caps oft'! 
 
 Old Blue Light's going to pray ; 
 Strangle the fool that dares to scoff ! 
 
 Attention ! it's his way ! 
 Appealing from his native sod 
 In forma pauperis to God, 
 "Lay bare thine arm, — stretch forth thy rod, 
 
 Amen!" That's Stonewall Jackson's way ! 
 
 He's in the saddle now ! fall in. 
 
 Steady the whole Brigade, 
 Hill's at the Ford cut off! we'll win 
 
 His way out, ball and blade. 
 What matter if our shoes are worn ? 
 What matter if our feet are torn ? 
 Quick step ! we're with him before morn ! 
 
 That's Stonewall Jackson's way ! 
 
 The sun's bright lances rout the mists 
 
 Of morning — and by George ! 
 There's Longstreet struggling in the lists 
 
 Hemmed in an ugly gorge. 
 Pope and his columns whipped before — 
 "Bayonets and grape" — hear Stonewall roar; 
 "Charge Stuart! pay off Ashby's score! 
 That's Stonewall Jackson's way ! 
 
 Ah 1 maiden, wait and watch and yearn 
 For news of Stonewall's band ; 
 
 Ah ! widow, read with eyes that burn, 
 That ring upon thy hand. 
 
 Ah ! wife sew on, pray on, hope on, 
 
 Thy life shall not be all forlorn ; 
 
 The foe had better ne'er been born, 
 Than get in Stonewall's way ! 
 
 XI 
 
 General Joseph E. Johaston is said to have expressed the opinion 
 that General Jackson was not a great strategist. General Johnston, 
 we believe, was the most profound military man of the war — a man 
 of cool, comprehensive and penetrating sagacity, but his opinion on 
 this point is rebutted by the plain record of facts. The Valley cam- 
 paign, and Richmond, and Manassas, and Chancellorsville rebuke it. 
 
47 
 
 General Johnston, with talents oi' a superior order, was yet not so 
 well fitted to lead such a forlorn hope as the Southern Revolution as 
 General Jackson was. He was not so practical, so energetic, so 
 daring. The Revolution depended upon audacious advances, not 
 upon masterly retreats, and as soon as the retrogade system was 
 adopted the days of the Confederacy were numbered. General 
 Johnston's campaign in Georgia against Sherman was a master 
 piece of military workmanship, and the spectacle of the hot-headed 
 Minucius Hood, throwing away the rare opportunity that the skill 
 of our Fabius had won, is the saddest of the war. But the Fabian 
 policy, although skillfully carried out as it was by Johnston, was the 
 wrong policy. The times did not call for Fabius — they wanted 
 Scipio. We are proud of General Johnston's skill, but it was not 
 the peculiar kind of skill that suited the obstacles we had to contend 
 against. Jackson's was. 
 
 The Fabian policy was the judicious one for Washington and his 
 generals during the Revolutionary War, because they made rivers, 
 swamps, wildernesses, starvation and disease their allies. It was 
 fatal to us because iron-clads. railroads, pontoon bridges, hospitals, 
 telegraphs, with Germany, Ireland, and a united North, followed us, 
 and we had nothing but naked patriotism to oppose them. 
 
 XII 
 
 The kindly relations of confidence, and friendship which existed 
 between Jackson and Lee throw a genial light over the glory of 
 both. Jackson said of his chief " Lee is a phenomenon, I would fol- 
 low him blindfold." Lee said of him when wounded " Jackson has 
 lost his left arm. I have lost my right arm ; " and wrote to him with 
 magnanimous sympathy : " could I have dictated events I should 
 have chosen for the good of the country to have been disabled in 
 your stead." '' Far better for the Confederacy,'' exclaimed Jackson 
 when he read the note, '" that ten Jacksons should have fallen than 
 one Lee." Criticism can only stand with uncovered head in the 
 presence of such men — but criticism should be just in opinion, as 
 well as generous in emotion. Comparing Jackson, and Lee the con- 
 trast is so striking that the comparison is difficult. For several 
 reasons, however, we believe that Jackson was better suited to lead the 
 armies of the revolution than Lee. 
 
48 
 
 " Everywhere " says a brilliant historian of England " there is 
 a class of men who cling with fondness to whatever is ancient, and 
 who, even when convinced by overpowering reasons that innovation 
 would be beneficial, consent to it with many misgivings, and forebod- 
 ings. We find also another class of men sanguine in hope, bold in 
 speculation, always pressing forward, quick to discern the imperfec- 
 tions of whatever exists, disposed to think lightly of the risks and 
 inconveniences that attend improvements, and disposed to give every 
 change credit for being an improvement."* Each class has its 
 great representatives, and in war we find the one slow, methodical 
 and cautious, and its glories are those of stubborn defence. The 
 other never inactive pushes boldly forwaid, stakes all upon a well 
 considered venture, and meets with decisive victory, or annihilation. 
 Of one class Lee is a type, of the other Jackson — and Jackson's was 
 the type we needed. Jackson was ambitious — Lee was not. Jack- 
 son sprung from poverty and obscurity, had to hew his way upward. 
 Lee the scion of an influential, and aristocratic house which traced 
 its lineage to the Norman conquest, the favorite subordinate of Gen- 
 eral Scott, the commander-in-chief of the United States Army, and 
 his prospective successor, had nothing to gain from a disruption of 
 the Union, but everything to lose. All of Lee's associations with the 
 Government and the people were calculated to give a national and 
 conservative tone to his character; the influences operating upon 
 Jackson made him sectional and revolutionary. Lee's home was in 
 full sight of the dome of the National Capitol, and he was admired 
 and loved by all classes of the Capital city. He was besides on 
 cordial terms of friendship with all the prominent ofiicers of the 
 army from the North, and felt a pang at the idea of severing his 
 connection with a service which was endeared by the most sacred 
 associations. When Virginia seceded there was a struggle in his 
 bosom. He was opposed to the idea of a Southern Confederacy, and 
 above all he was opposed to the peculiar institution which was to 
 become its corner stone. f While thus wavering he was waited upon 
 by a member of Mr. Lincoln's cabinet and tendered command of the 
 United States Army.| The glittering bribe could not swerve the 
 
 * Macaulay, Vol. I. p. 93. 
 
 f "I Lave always been in favor of emancipation." — Lee's testimony he/ore Congressional Com- 
 mittee." McCabe's Life of Lee, p. 701. 
 
 X lion. Montgomery Blair lia« so stated since the war in a pnblislioil letter. See also McC.abe, 
 page 29. 
 
49 
 
 pure soul of Robert Lee from its duty. A sentiment of honor bound 
 him to his native State, and he determined to side with her, con- 
 vinced though he was that her course was unwise, and held back as 
 he was by his devotion to the Union. To his sister he wrote : " With 
 all my devotion to the Union, and the feeling of loyalty and duty of 
 an Americon citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to 
 raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I have, 
 therefore, resigned my commission in the army, and save in defence 
 of my native State, with the sincere hope that my poor services may 
 never be needed, I hope I may never be called upon to draw my 
 sword."* 
 
 Locke has observed that there is no better proof of a man's great- 
 ness than his earnest efforts to carry out views which he originally 
 opposed. It is a proof of Lee's greatness, and to his undying glory, 
 that he promptly espoused the cause of his people when the issue 
 was made up, and fought ibr it with unsurpassed heroism. But in 
 criticising his campaigns we should not fail to estimate the effect of 
 his political opinions upon his military character. Lee fought for a 
 cause which he adopted with reluctance, and then not for its own 
 sake, but simply from a technical view of its abstract right, and a 
 warm-hearted sympathy with its people. This fact dampened his 
 ardor and his hopes, and clouded his mind with misgivings and fore- 
 bodings of an evil end. Heroically and magnificently as he fought, 
 he did not fight with that confidence, that go-ahedd-ativeness, that 
 audacity, that fiery enthusiasm, which would have marked his course 
 had his full faith fought with him. 
 
 Jackson, for a decade before the war, had mingled freely with and 
 imbibed the sentiments of the people. He fully believed in the 
 Southern Confederacy and in slavery, and he fought for both with 
 the unshaken conviction that they were destined to endure, and 
 that he was raised up to defend them. 
 
 Whether we are correct or not in conjecturing the causes of the 
 difference in the military ideas and conduct of the two generals, 
 certain it is that the difference existed. All the daring and brilliant 
 strokes of the Army of Northern Virginia, after Lee assumed com- 
 mand of it, which were successful, were planned or executed by 
 Jackson. In glancing at its battles we almost invariably behold 
 Jackson at the crisis falling upon the enemy by a startling flank 
 attack, and striking the fatal blow. It was his rapid march, his sud- 
 
 *McCabe, ji. 31. 
 G 
 
50 
 
 den apparition, and lais sharp thrusts that turned McClellan from 
 Richmond. It was Lee who checked pursuit at the river. It was 
 Jackson who first beheld the "back of John Pope" at Cedar Run, 
 and who by his adroit manoeuvres at Manasses held that redoubtable 
 chieftain in check until Lee came up, and the two gave him a quietus 
 together. To Jackson mainly is due the credit of capturing at Har- 
 per's Ferry 13,000 men and 73 pieces of cannon on the 15th of Sep- 
 tember, 1862, while on the day before Lee himself, at Boonsboro, 
 having been tardy in bringing up Longstreet's division, received a 
 rough handling from McClellan. They share jointly in the glories 
 of Sharpsburg, but the only results of the Maryland campaign 
 which redounded to our permanent benefit were those achieved by 
 Jackson. 
 
 At Fredericksburg we behold a brilliant opportunity for crushing 
 Burnside thrown away by Lee's over-caution. It is not doubted by 
 either Federals or Confederates that had Lee pushed forward while 
 Burnside's troops were crouching under the banks of the Rappahan- 
 nock, he would have captured or destroyed them — Jackson was in 
 favor of the effort at the time. It was Jackson, finally, who outdone 
 Hooker at Chancellorsville, and [it is a significant fact that that loas 
 the last occasion on tvMch the Army of Northern Virginia drove the 
 Army of the Potomac beyond cannon range of the contest. 
 
 At Gettysburg, three months afterwards, Lee stopped on the first 
 day at the very moment of victory. On the second day he was 
 beaten in detail in consequence of a disjointed and ill-regulated 
 attack. On the third day the blunders of the second were fatally 
 repeated. Many a soldier exclaimed, as he saw the opportunities of 
 Gettysburg wasted, "oh for an hour of Jackson." 
 
 There was no fault to be found with the men. The Army was at 
 the acme of its morale and physique at Gettysburg. It fought as 
 well after its d(efeats as its victories, and as well after Jackson's death 
 as before, but "^'it was noticed," as Mr. Swinton has observed "that 
 Lee ventured upon no strokes of audacity after Jackson had passed 
 away." * 
 
 The same author has expressed the opinion that "Jackson was 
 essentially an executive officer, and though incomparable in that 
 sphere, he was destitute of that power of planning and combination, 
 and of that calm broad military intellect which distinguished General 
 Lee."f But Jackson won his series of brilliant victories in the Valley 
 
 *Anny ol tlio rotoniac, p. 290. fid. p. 290. 
 
51 
 
 not as an executive officer, but as a general commanding with sole 
 responsibility, and with no dependence on the counsel or direction of 
 others. Jackson seemed more independent of Lee than Lee of him. 
 His movements were generally of his own suggestion, and of that 
 character whose chief merit consists in execution. Perhaps Lee's 
 intellect was broader but it was not so keen. Against the mail-clad 
 North the broad sword of Lee struck noble blows, but they could 
 not cleave it. The rapier-like blade of Jackson penetrated the 
 greaves and gave terrible wounds at every thrust. 
 
 Lee's ablest and most effective campaign was that against Grant 
 from the Rappahannock to the James The figures which attest Lee's 
 excellent generalship, and Grant's bloody stolidity are startling. The 
 armies met May 5th, 1864.* Grant had 125,000 effective men besides 
 his reserve. Lee had 52,000. Giant's reinforcements up to June 
 3d, numbered 97,000 ; Lee's 18,000. Grant's total 222,000— Lee's 
 total 70,000. Official returns show that up to 10th of June Lee had 
 put 117,000 of Grant's men hors du combat, and lost but 19,000 of 
 his own. " It will be seen that Grant's total force, including reinforce- 
 ments, was 152.000, and his loss 9,800 in excess of Lee's, or that, 
 with a force outnumbering his opponents three to one, Grant, the 
 bungler, lost every other man in his army, while Lee lost but two out 
 of every nine; or, that Grant lost just 6,000 men, more than one 
 and a-half times Lee's entire army. That Grant succeeded is true 
 but a general would have accomplished the same result with less 
 means, and less loss." Such is the commentary of a Northern 
 editor. It was derided when the South said that one of her soldiers 
 was equal when defending his fireside to five of his enemies. Grant 
 acknowledged it in his theory of the war, and proved it in his prac- 
 tice. On this campaign alone Lee's fame finds an imperishable 
 foundation. It elevates him to the foremost rank of military men 
 with Turenne, Eugene, Marlborough, and Wellington. No officer's 
 abilities were ever more mathematically demonstrated than Lee's. 
 
 Adam Smith said "it is a characteristic almost peculiar to the 
 great Duke of Marlborough that ten years of such uninterrupted, 
 and splendid successes, as scarce any other general could boast of, 
 never betrayed him into a single rash action, scarce into a single rash 
 word or expression." Lee possessed the same temperate coolneess, 
 and self command as Marlborough without his weaknesses, or his 
 
 *Tlus calculation is taken from the N. Y. World— .Tunc 9tli. ISOS. 
 
52 
 
 vices. During four years of unremitting battle he stood calm, reso- 
 lute, and imperturbable never betrayed by his varying fortunes into 
 a single rash action, or uttering a rash expression. His enemies 
 respected him scarce less than his friends, and it was equally honor- 
 able to him, and to the federal troops, that when a body of federal 
 infantry passing down a street in Richmond after the surrender, 
 caught a glimpse of his form, through a neighboring window, they 
 raised their hats and gave him a splendid cheer. 
 
 Take him all in all he is greater as a man, but we thinkj not 
 greater as a general, than Jackson. 
 
 The striking contrast between the universal popularity of Lee and 
 Jackson, and the unpopularity of Jefferson Davis is explained by the 
 fact that the former were simply soldiers — the latter a politician. 
 
 The North unanimously, and the South partially, referred the 
 responsibility of the war to Mr. Davis. They knew that Lee and 
 Jackson had no hand in bringing it about. Lee and Jackson had no 
 associates in the North but friends. Davis, as the representative of 
 Southern ideas and measures, had been thrown into fierce collision 
 with Northern men from every State north of Mason's and Dixon's 
 line. Lee parted from his old comrades in the army with tears in 
 his eyes. Davis parted from his opponents in the Senate with indig- 
 nation flashing in his. Davis was regarded by the North as erupting 
 the Union and seeking to establish a new confederacy to gratify his 
 personal ambition. Lee and Jackson were regarded as simply defend- 
 ing their people from a sentiment of duty. 
 
 These opinions must perish with the passions that engendered 
 them, and the day will come when all classes will yield a hearty admira- 
 tion to the great abilities and the unblemished character of Jefferson 
 Davis. The hot lava of fanatical passion which would now destroy 
 him, will when cool be wrou<rht into images to his honor. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Our cause suffered incalculable injury from a radical source of 
 evil for which the Confederate Congress was responsible mainly, and 
 Davis, Lee, Jackson, and our other leaders secondarily; that is, the 
 miserable unmilitary and unreasonable system of promotion in the 
 Confederate Army which filled its high places with ignorant and 
 
53 
 
 incompetent officers. The officers of the regiments were originally 
 elected — the privates choosing company officers, and the company 
 officers choosing field officers. The vacancies constantly occurring 
 were filled by regular gradation. lago, in the Army of Northern 
 Virginia, would have been delighted to see preferment go 
 
 "by old gradation, where each second 
 Stood heir to the first," 
 
 though he would have seen many a " fellow" honored with stars and 
 bars and wreaths, 
 
 "Who never set a squadron in the field 
 Nor the division of a battle knew 
 More than a spinster." 
 
 In short, the men from personal favoritism chose the lieutenants 
 and captains, and the enemy's bullets made the majors, colonels, and 
 generals. A major, for instance, was killed. According to law the 
 senior captain succeeded him, unless proved to be incompetent. How- 
 ever gifted, however well educated, however striking the military 
 abilities or deserving the exploits of the second captain, he found an 
 insurmountable obstacle to advancement in the person of his superior 
 in rank. That technical superior might be ever so inferior in every 
 essential, he still had the right to demand promotion. There was, 
 therefore, no incentive to the laudable and generous aspirations of 
 the subordinate officers. If they could manage to absent themselves 
 from their regiments until their seniors were killed they were sure of 
 promotion. If they performed prodigies of valor they could get it 
 no sooner. Thus selfishness and mediocrity were starred and wreathed 
 while patriotism and heroism bled and died in silence. 
 
 " Quels sont les braves P" Napoleon used to ask when he rode 
 amongst his thinned ranks after a battle. When pointed out they 
 were decorated with honors and advanced to high rank. No general 
 of the South ever asked for the braves after a battle. They were 
 left if wounded to lie unnoticed in hospitals ; if unscathed, to fight 
 on with every prospect of wounds and death, but without prospect of 
 any reward save that of an approving conscience. 
 
 It is discreditable to the Confederate Government that it adopted 
 such a system, and Lee, Jackson, and our other prominent generals, 
 are to be blamed for tolerating it. True, these officers had no arbi- 
 trary power to remove the impediment, but they ought to have 
 entered a daily protest against it, and persisted with all their ener- 
 
54 
 
 gies in denouncing it. It was a deadly cancer in our military system, 
 and proved fatal. 
 
 The Yankees did better. Like the French, they instantly degraded 
 incompetence and rewarded merit. The consequence was that their 
 officers were daily improving as a class, and ours depreciating. At 
 the end of the war the best military talent of the North led its 
 armies, and the best military talent of the South was still latent. 
 Republican sensibilities were shocked during the Crimean war by the 
 despicable regulation of the British service which forbade Lord 
 Raglan to mention in an official report a non-commissioned officer who 
 had saved his army. Common sense was as much shocked by the 
 inability of the Confederate President to promote a private or 
 sergeant to a captaincy because of the claims of a first lieutenant. 
 
 As dearly as we love, as truly as we honor Lee, and Jackson, and 
 Davis, and Early, and Stuart, and their illustrious peers, far more 
 warmly does the heart yearn, far more reverentially does the head 
 bow to the devoted people whom they represented — the heroic army 
 they led. History has heroes that stand on a level with our leaders 
 — it has never had an army or a people that stand on so high a plane 
 as our army and our people. It is impossible to separate them. 
 Upon our battle fields we saw only the lessons of our firesides in 
 action. As were the mothers, and sisters, and wives in the interior, 
 so were the sons, brothers, and fathers in the front. The people 
 were for the time absorbed in the army, and every true citizen of the 
 South can justly share in the glory of the tribute thus spoken by one 
 who fought against them: "Nor can there fail," says Mr. Swinton 
 in his history; "Nor can there fail to arise the image of that other 
 army that was the adversary of the Army of the Potomac — and 
 which who can ever forget that once looked upon it ? That array of 
 'tattered uniforms and bright muskets' — that body of incomparable 
 infantry, the Army of Northern Virginia, which for four years car- 
 ried the revolt upon its bayonets, opposing a constant front to the 
 mighty concentration of power brought against it; which, receiving 
 terrible blows, did not fail to give the like; and which, vital in all 
 its parts, died only with its annihilation."* 
 
 *Swinton, p. 16. 
 
55 
 
 XIV 
 
 Dr. Dabney in his work, repudiates the comparison of Jackson to 
 Cromwell, but asserts that Jackson had all of Cromwell's genius "both 
 military and civic;" * but it seems to us that the Doctor has at once 
 over-estimated Jackson, and under-rated the great Puritan leader. 
 Jackson was his equal — even his superior as a general, but whether 
 or not he possessed comparable talents as a statesman must remain a 
 matter of pure speculation. 
 
 Cromwell's abilities as a statesman were tested and proved by his 
 course as a legislator, and as a ruler. Jackson's were never called 
 into play, — and although, as his biographer shows, he expressed very 
 sensible opinions on public afiairs, there is not the slightest evidence 
 that he had the genius which controls senates, and exercises a guiding- 
 influence on the complicated affairs of state. In point of intellect 
 Jackson was far inferior to Cromwell. The letters, the speeches, and 
 public acts of Cromwell reveal a deep knowledge of human nature, an 
 administrative sagacity, and a high degree of versatility. Jackson 
 has left us no speeeches,f and the letters from which Dr. Dabney has 
 profusely quoted so far from shewing extensive information or pro- 
 found observation are rather dull than otherwise, and would never be 
 read but for the "shadow of a great name" that protects them. 
 
 A man of Jackson's earnestness is apt to succeed in any enterprise 
 but there are no indications that he had peculiar fitness for the 
 negotiations of diplomacy, the deliberations of cabinets, or the con- 
 tests of the forum. The battle-field was his arena — he is not identi- 
 fied with any great idea of the South, but her genius for war found 
 in him its best representative. The friends who make the assertion 
 that he was intellectually great, do him injustice, and only lead to the 
 disappointment of those who search his history for the verification. 
 
 There was nothing in his conversation, nothing in his writings, 
 nothing in his deeds that unmistakeably indicate a comprehensive, 
 or versatile mind; nor have those who were associated with him before 
 or during the war, except in a few cases, held such an opinion ; and 
 the enlightened views of friends, and associates are fair criterions of 
 character. These who lavish such compliments upon General Jack- 
 son do not appreciate the true elements of his heroic nature, and the 
 true causes of his wonderful achievements. 
 
 *p. 13. 
 
 f A brief speech of Jackson to his troops is excepted. It is striking na 
 a soldier's — nothing more. 
 
 L.ofC. 
 
56 
 
 A comparison of Jackson to Napoleon, in point of genius, is utterly 
 preposterous. Like Napoleon, Jackson was "a man of stone and 
 iron, capable of sitting on horseback sixteen or seventeen hours, of 
 going many days together without rest or food, except by snatches, 
 and with speed and spring of a tiger in action ;"* but there the like- 
 ness ends. Napoleon was a universal man. Circumstances only 
 determined whether he should be the greatest orator, poet, philoso- 
 pher, law-giver, or scientific man of his age. He was so bountifully 
 endowed by nature that he did become the leader of men in almost 
 every department of learning and science. The grandest ideas of 
 the grandest men of all times met together in his brain. The very 
 glance of his eye consumed opposition like fire, and there " were 
 words in him like Austerlitz battles." His profound calculations 
 embraced continents — his minute observation descended to the spoke 
 of a cannon wheel, and the buckle of a harness. Time, distance, 
 mountains, seas, seasons, shrunk, expanded and changed-at his dicta- 
 tion. The hemisphere adjusted itself to his notions./ There was no 
 genius like this in Jackson. Plain, silent, hard-working, brave and 
 active, he succeeded not by extending his mind to embrace all 
 elements, but by contracting it and keeping it steadily bent upon the 
 study of war. 
 
 "Wellington," said Madame de Stael, "has not two ideas off the 
 battlefield." There is a grain of truth in the remark. It was on 
 the battle-field that great ideas sprung up in Jackson's brain — off of 
 it he had none that would have made him memorable. 
 
 Morally Jackson towers as high above Napoleon as Napoleon 
 towers intellectually above himV "I must dazzle and astonish," was 
 the idea that lived and moved and had its being in Napoleon. 
 " Dieu et mon droit" was incarnated in Jackson. Essentially selfish. 
 Napoleon cared not what hearts were broken, what blood was spilled, 
 provided the triumphal column held his image on its summit. Sub- 
 ordinating himself in all things to duty, Jackson had a heart for any 
 llite, provided it were soothed by a still and quiet conscience. "As 
 false as a bulletin" became a proverb in Napoleon's time — he became 
 a text for the father of his to preach from — his bulletins had but one 
 object, the glorification of self. 
 
 Read Jackson's dispatches — they are models of simplicity and 
 
 ♦Emerson's Ropresentative Men, p. 22G. 
 
57 
 
 truth. When he is not informed as to facts, he is silent. Here are 
 two : 
 
 " Valley District, May 9, '63, 
 
 via Staunton, May 10th. 
 To General S. Cooper. 
 
 God blessed our arms with victory at McDowell yesterday. 
 
 T. J. JACKSON, Major-General." 
 
 "Port Republic, June 9th, 
 
 via Staunton, June 10th, 1S62. 
 To S. Cooper, Adjutant- General. 
 
 Through God's blessing, the enemy, near Port Republic, was this day 
 routed with the loss of six pieces of his artillery. 
 
 T. J. JACKSON, Major- General." 
 
 This is his style — the usual exordium of acknowledgement to 
 God — and then laconic statement of fact, in which no egotism 
 intrudes. 
 
 The simplicity observable in his dispatches is observable in all 
 his manners and actions. A writer from the army during the 
 war very justly said, " General Jackson's head-quarters are often 
 under a tree, and his couch is in a fence corner; his equip- 
 ment is little more than a frying-pan and a blanket. He sees per- 
 sonally to the execution of his own orders. The activity of a per- 
 petual ' forward ' seems to pervade his army ; they never get out of 
 ammunition ; they never lose baggage or stores ; whether drawn 
 from the government or captured from the enemy, no matter, they 
 are always ready to move at the right time." * 
 
 We approach the last scene in the drama of Jackson's career. 
 
 The Army of Northern Virginia spent the winter of 1862-'63 on 
 the banks of the Rappahannock, near Fredericksburg, and at dawn 
 of the 29th of April it was started from its huts by the long roll 
 upon the drum, which, mingling with the rattle of musketry, 
 announced that " fighting Joe Hooker" was about to try his fortunes 
 against Lee. 
 
 Wellington's foresight in studying the field of Waterloo a year 
 before the battle gave him signal advantage over Napoleon. Jackson, 
 with characteristic prudence, had studied the adjacent country 
 
 •Dnvis ami Jacksou, p. 276. 
 H 
 
58 
 
 during the winter months, and was prepared to avail himself of 
 every tactical and strategic advantage over Hooker. It was a moment 
 that called forth every element of our generalship and soldiership. 
 Hooker, with 120,000 infantry and artillery, and 10,000 cavalry, 
 confronted Lee, who had only 45,000 infantry and artillery and 
 and a small force of cavalry.* 
 
 Hooker's plans soon developed. Leaving Sedgwick with 22,000 
 men at Fredericksburg, he crossed the Rappahannock at Kelly's 
 Ford, twenty-seven miles above, with the remainder, and appeared at 
 Chancellorsville, ten miles from Lee's left at Fredericksburg, on May 
 the 1st; and confident that his advantageous position would force 
 Lee to retreat, he announced to his army that "the enemy must 
 either ingloriously fly, or come out from behind his defences and give 
 us battle on our own ground, where certain destruction awaits him ;" 
 and boastfully asserted amongst his officers and men that " the rebel 
 army is now the legitimate property of the Army of the Potomac"! 
 
 Leaving Early in the trenches at Fredericksburg with five brigades 
 of 7,500 bayonets to hold at bay his three-fold over-numerous foe, 
 Lee turned to Chancellorsville, and with 38,000 faced Hooker's 
 95,000. On the night of the 2d of May Jackson suggested an idea 
 which Lee immediately approved and adopted, and on the 3d it was 
 put in execution. Winding rapidly around Hooker's right flank 
 with Rodes', Colston's, and A. P. Hill's divisions, not quite 18,000 
 strong, Jackson gained the reverse of the Union lines by 5 o'clock in 
 the evening. Hooker's scouts had caught a glimpse of this column as 
 it passed his right flank, but that commander never divining its pur- 
 pose, concluded that it was "ingloriously flying," and dispatched to 
 Sedgwick : " We know the enemy is flying, trying to save his trains. "| 
 It was near sunset. Scarcely a sound disturbed the solemn solitudes of 
 the wilderness, save, perhaps, a dried twig broke under the foot of 
 the startled deer§ that snuff"ed mischief in the evening breeze. The 
 
 * "General Longstreet, with two divisions of his corps, was detached for 
 service south of James River in February, and did not rejoin the army until 
 after the battle of Chancellorsville." — Lees Report. 
 
 t Svvinton : Army of the Potomac, p. 275. 
 
 X Swinton, p. 284. " It happened that the road along which Jackson's 
 column was filing bends somewhat southward, so that though the move- 
 ment was discovered, it was misinterpreted as a retreat towards Richmond 
 on the part of Lee." 
 
 g Deer were actually started up by our troops. 
 
59 
 
 federal troops, apprehending no danger save from Lee in front, had 
 thrown up earthworks to repel him, and with countenances smiling 
 in conscious security and anticipated victory, were taking their 
 evening meal. Suddenly there arose a deafening cheer, and the 
 earth shook with the tramp of rushing lines and the thunder of 
 cannon. The smoke clears away, and behold the wreck of a ruined 
 host! A corps of 11,000 men had been shivered as by lightning. * 
 The tide of victory was rising — the rout of Hooker had begun ; but 
 stop ! our leader — where is he ? 
 
 "They had fought like brave men, hard and well ; 
 They had piled the ground with foemen slain ; 
 They had conquered ; but their Jackson fell 
 Bleeding at every vein." 
 
 It was alas too true ! Filled with a sense of the momentous issues 
 of the moment, and his whole soul aflame with the ardor of battle, 
 Jackson had ridden in advance of his skirmish line preparatory to 
 pushing forward his troops in vigorous pursuit. He had just decided 
 where to strike, and had sent a courier with his last battle order : 
 " Tell A. P. Hill to press right on." Turning to ride back, his own 
 troops mistook him and his staff for federal cavalry and fired upon 
 them. His right hand was pierced, and his left arm broken in two 
 places. Several of his attendants were killed.. With firm self- 
 possession he reined his horse with his wounded hand, but presently 
 fell fainting in the arms of his staff. They were accidentally joined 
 in a few minutes by A. P. Hill and his aides. They were so near 
 the enemy's lines that two skirmishers came up to the group around 
 the stricken General and were captured. The blood was soon 
 staunched, and he was placed upon a litter; but just at this time the 
 rallying enemy and our advanced line came in contact, a tempest of 
 grape-shot swept over them, one of the litter bearers was cut down 
 and the General hurled violently to the earth. 
 
 Thus ended the story of Stonewall Jackson. 
 
 Where in the annals of our race can we find so touching a spectacle 
 of the vanity of human hopes, and the frailty of human glory ? 
 
 *" The 11th corps had been brushed way. * * * .lackson had seized 
 the breastworks, had taken the whole line in reverse, pushed forward to 
 within half-a-mile of head-quarters, and now proceeded to make prepa- 
 rations for following up his success by a blow that should be decisive." 
 — Su'inton, p. 2S7. 
 
60 
 
 Where shall we find so much glory compressed ia a short time — 
 where so sad and sudden a termination ? Two years before an 
 unknown colonel of artillery — now a great leader, whose every word 
 was a harbinger of destiny — whose every act varied the drama of 
 history. Twenty victories had culminated in this supreme exertion 
 of his genius — the glories of Chancellorsville had risen upon the 
 mingled glories of twenty fields. 
 
 " Like another morn 
 Risen upon midnoon." 
 
 The arm of the hero is raised to strike the final blow which is to 
 make the sun of victory stand still I When lo ! itself is struck, and 
 the leader of hosts lies there upon the earth a feeble piece of bleed- 
 ing clay, while the rush of feet is around him, and the pitiless battle 
 hail robs him even of his gory bed. 
 
 They carried him from the field to the house of a friend, and 
 all that love and skill could do was done for him. There were 
 sad faces in the old Second Corps when the dreadful news was whis- 
 pered along the lines that night, and down the powder and dust- 
 stained cheek of many a veteran trickled the long unknown tear. 
 " Jackson wounded !" They heard it with mingled incredulity and 
 dread. They had seen him so often sitting upon his horse in the 
 midst of fire and slaughter, with placid countenance, and hand up- 
 raised in prayer, that they knew him impregnable to fear — they had 
 seen him so often come forth unscathed that they had begun to 
 believe that he wore a charmed life impregnable to danger. But the 
 truth was relentless. He had fallen. Would he live ? Would he 
 rise again and return to them after a season ? These were the 
 anxious questions now. Stuart was sent for and the next day his 
 plume floated over their bayonets as they pierced the enemys ranks, 
 and the cry mingled with their cheers, " charge and remember Jack- 
 son!" His name there, and in all their after battles fought with 
 them — alas ! it could not guide them. 
 
 For a few days Jackson lingered. His left arm had been ampu- 
 tated, and disease had supervened upon his wound. But he was 
 cheerful and hopeful. He spoke with all affection of his officers and 
 men, and expressed the opinion, which history must afiirm, that had 
 he not been wounded Hooker's Army would have been utterly anni- 
 hilated. Yet with characteristic modesty he said of his movement 
 " I expect to receive far more credit for it than I deserve. Most men 
 
61 
 
 will think I planned it from the first; but it was not so — I simply 
 took advantage of circumstances as they were presented to me in the 
 providence of God. I feel that his hand led me — let us give him all 
 the glory." * 
 
 On the morning of the 10th of May, his wife who had come to 
 attend him informed him that the Doctors said there was no hope — 
 he must "soon be in heaven.'" He only answered "I prefer it, and 
 I will be an infinite gainer 'to be translated.' " Did ever the parting 
 soul meet the last enemy more nobly ? 
 
 In his last hours his mind wandered — perhaps back to the battle- 
 field : " tell A. P. Hill to prepare for action," he said. At another 
 time "tell Major Hawksf to send forward provisions for the troops." 
 Again " it is all right." In his last moments he murmured " let us 
 pass over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees." Perhaps 
 he saw again the green banks of the Shenandoah, perhaps he caught 
 a glimpse of those " green pastures, and still waters " where the 
 weary are at rest : and thus with resignation to the will of heaven, 
 and anticipation of its joys, the soul of our great warrior passed 
 away from us. J; 
 
 How like were his to the dying words of Arthur, the blameless 
 King, as the Poet Laureate has rendered them : 
 
 "I am going a long way 
 To the Island valley of Avilion, 
 Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 
 Nor ever wind blows loudly ; but it lies 
 Deep meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns 
 And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea. 
 Where I will heal me of my grievous wound." 
 
 •'• Dr. Dabuey's life of Jackson. 
 
 t His Commissary. 
 
 X I give Mr. Swinton's remarks, though not concurring in them. 
 
 "Thus died Stonewall Jackson the ablest of Lee's lieutenants. Jackson 
 was essentially an executive officer, and in this sphere he was incomparable. 
 Devoid of high mental pajts, and destitute of that power of planning and 
 combination, and of that calm broad military intellect, which distinguished 
 General Lee whom he regarded with a child-like reverence, and whose 
 designs he loved to carry out, he had yet those elements of character that, 
 above all else, inspire troops. A fanatic in religion, fully believing he was 
 destined by heaven to beat his enemy whenever he encountered him, he 
 infused something of his own fervent faith into his men, and at the time of 
 his death haji trained a corps whose attacks in column were unique, and 
 
 ida- 
 ^90. 
 
 irresistibl9^ and it was noticed that Lee ventured upon no strokes of auc 
 city after Jackson had passed &w&y^/— Army of the Potomac, Swinton p. 2i 
 
G2 
 
 Jackson was dead ! It struck every Southerner like a bolt in the 
 bosom. The great right arm of Lee that had been uplifted so often 
 in prayer, and had descended so terribly, after gathering strength 
 from heaven, was shattered — gone. Lee fought henceforth one armed. 
 
 Ewell, Early, and Gordon succeeded in turn to the command of 
 the Second Corps. They were noble, heroic, and able generals, but it 
 is no disparagement of either to say that neither filled the place 
 vacated by Jackson. It is but just to them to add that neither had 
 the opportunity. 
 
 From friend and foe alike came his praise. We can all join in 
 the tribute paid him by our ex-President while a captive : "For 
 glory," said he, "he had lived long enough, and if this result 
 had to come it was the Divine mercy that removed him. He fell like 
 the eagle, his own feather on the shaft that was dripping with his 
 life blood. In his death the Confederacy lost an eye and an arm, our 
 only consolation being that his summons could have reached no 
 soldier more prepared to accept it joyfully."* Nor will we be 
 lacking in esteem for the generous, patriotic, and christian spirit of 
 the Northern editor who rose above the unholy passions which the 
 war had aroused, and paid this tribute to the genius and character 
 of Jackson :f "No other man has impressed the imagination of our 
 soldiers and the community as much as he. An unknown name at 
 the beginning of the war, save to his brother officers and his classes 
 in the military school at Lexington, Virginia, his footsteps were 
 earliest in the field from which now death has withdrawn him. But 
 in two years he has made his name familiar in every civilized land on 
 the globe as a general of rare skill, resource, and energy. No other 
 general of the South could develope so much power out of slender and 
 precarious means, by the fervid inspiration of his own mind, as Jack- 
 son. He had absolute control of his men, seeming almost to fascinate 
 them. * * * Henceforth we know him no more after the flesh. 
 He is no longer a foe. We think of him pow as a noble-minded 
 gentleman, a rare and eminent christian. For years he had been an 
 active member of the Presbyterian church of which he was a ruling 
 elder. He never, in all the occupations of the camp or temptations 
 of campaigns, lost the fervor of his piety or remitted his christian 
 duties. * * * Let no man suppose that the North will triumph 
 
 * Craven's Prison Life of .Tefforson Davis. 
 
 t Letter to New York Independent, quoted in Doolady'n sketch of Jackson, p. 248. 
 
63 
 
 over a fallen son with insulting gratulations. No where else will the 
 name of Jackson be more honored." We respect the author of such 
 sentiments. Let the hates and resentments of the war perish with 
 it. The time shall come when in either section there shall survive 
 only admiration for what is best in each; and then from above the 
 firesides of the American People the iron moulded countenance of 
 Stonewall Jackson, and the benignant, patriarchal countenance of 
 Robert Lee shall look down upon the rising generations. 
 
«:?^>< 
 ^ 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 STONEWALL JACKSON. 
 
 By JOHN WARWICK DANIEL. 
 
 -/; 
 
lEApj