of that remarkable man, whose campaign in the CH. XXII. Shenandoah Valley produced this derangement of the plans of the Government.

General Thomas Jonathan (commonly called Stonewall") Jackson was by far the most interesting and picturesque figure in the Southern army. His brilliant successes and his early death enshrined him in the hearts of his associates as their foremost champion; while the intense religious enthusiasm which appeared in all his public and private utterances added the halo of the saint to the laurels of the hero. In what we shall have to say in regard to this singular character, we shall refer to no facts except those recorded by Confederate writers, and although we may not be able to accept all their conclusions, it cannot be contested that General Jackson was a man of extraordinary qualities, and a soldier whose successes were due no less to his abilities than to his good fortune and the mistakes of his adversaries.

R. L. Dab"Life and

of LeutenThomas J.

ant-General

Jackson,"

p. 16.

Though connected with a family of fair standing in Virginia, his father died poor, after wasting his substance in drink and play; the boy grew up in the care of relatives, twice running away from the roof which sheltered him and returning "soiled, ragged, and emaciated by the ague." His early education was defective; he earned his living by hard labor, Ibid., p. 21. and for a time served as a rural constable until he accidentally received an appointment to the Military Academy at West Point. He is remembered by his contemporaries there as a slow, dull, unprepossessing youth, of great correctness of conduct and untiring industry in his studies. He served creditably in the Mexican war, and soon after it ended

Dabney, p. 63.

Ibid., p. 112.

CH. XXII. resigned his place in the army and became a teacher in the Virginia Military School at Lexington, where he lived for ten years. He was not especially popular or successful as a teacher; his manner was lacking in tact, his character in flexibility. Had the war not come to call him forth to glory and the grave, he would probably have lived and died in that mountain village known only to his neighbors, to use Dr. Dabney's expression, "as a sincere, odd, weak man." We find in the writings of several of his eulogists, indications of singularities which border upon monomania. Colonel Fremantle says, on the authority of the Confederate General Slaughter, "When he left the United States service he was under the impression that one of his legs was getting shorter than the other; and afterwards his idea was that he only perspired on one side, and that it was necessary to keep the arm and leg of the other side in constant motion in order to preserve the circulation."

But the war was his opportunity. There was not a quality of heart, mind, or temperament which he possessed that did not contribute to his success and his fame. Even his weaknesses ministered to his strength. He had been a sufferer from ophthalmia and could not use his eyes at night; he had therefore acquired the habit of reviewing mentally all the reading of the day, while sitting silent in the midst of his family with his face to the wall, and had thus gained a remarkable power of concentration of thought and memory of details. His digestion in his youth was feeble and capricious; he had for that reason accustomed himself to the utmost abstemiousness; and it was no sacrifice to

Dabney,

p. 101.

him to share the meager fare of his soldiers on the CH. XXII. march. But the quality which gained for him much of his influence in the army, and which contributed most largely to that sentiment of devotion with which his memory is regarded in the South and in England, was his intense religious enthusiasm. Anything like it is rarely met with in modern times; we must go back to the ages of unquestioning faith, to Philip II., to Torquemada, to find a parallel to it. He believed himself to be under the immediate and partisan protection of his Creator; he believed, and his biographer thinks the belief perfectly reasonable, that Heaven helped him plan his campaigns and battles; his Creator was ever present to his mind, in his own image- as good a Southerner, as earnest a hater of the Yankees, as stern a fighter, as himself. He conversed with Him constantly; he interpreted literally the injunction to "pray without ceasing." "When we take our meals," he would say, "there is the grace. When I take a draught of water, I always pause, as my palate receives the refreshment, to lift up my heart to God in thanks and prayer for the water of life. Whenever I drop a letter into the box of the post-office, I send a petition along with it for God's blessing upon its mission and upon the person to whom it is sent. When I break the seal of a letter just received, I stop to pray to God that He may prepare me for its contents, and make it a messenger of good. And so of every other familiar act of the day." A great part of his time in the saddle was passed in the act of prayer. A hundred times a day he would be seen to throw his right hand aloft and to move his

Ibid., p. 106.

CH. XXII. lips in silent supplication. His constant entreaty to his friends was that they should continually pray that he might be the instrument to wreak Heaven's purposes upon his adversaries. He believed himself selected especially for the work he was doing; he was a hammer in the hands of God for the destruction of the ungodly. The firmest convictions of religious duty were easily reconciled with the exigencies of the military service which seemed to violate them. He was a fanatical Sabbatarian; he would not read a letter, which arrived Saturday night, until Monday; he would not post one in such a way that it would travel on the Sabbath. Yet he would not scruple to bring on a bloody battle on Sunday, if he could catch his enemy at a disadvantage; in that case, of course, it was the Lord's will. When he was sent to destroy some railroad property, he thought with regret how many Bibles could have been printed with the proceeds; but none the less he destroyed it.

Dabney, p. 201.

The self-consciousness inseparable from such a temperament took with him its usual contrasted forms of shyness and vanity. His biographer quotes him as relating that when in Mexico he made the acquaintance of some agreeable Spanish families, but finding the ladies too fascinating, "he firmly withdrew himself, before his self-respect was tarIbid., p. 55. nished." There were no bounds to his bashful self-conceit. He did not scruple to say, on every

1 Lieut.-Col. Fremantle quotes General J. E. Johnston as saying, "that although this extraordinary man did not possess any great qualifications as a strategist, and was perhaps unfit for the independent command of a

large army, yet he was gifted with wonderful courage and determination, and a perfect faith in Providence that he was destined to destroy his enemy.”— "Three Months in the Southern States," p. 125.

Dabney,

p. 72.

occasion where the feasibility of certain accomplish- CH. XXII. ments was referred to, "I can accomplish anything I will to perform." In matters of trivial concern, such as diet and drink, he held himself up as a model. "Do as I do," he would say; "my head never aches." When he first began to lead in public prayer his excessive self-consciousness made the effort painful to himself and others- but none the less he persevered. It was especially characteristic of him that he ascribed to the Deity the credit of all that was done for him. At every promotion he received, he burst forth into ardent ejaculations of praise to Heaven; none of God's creatures ever received his thanks. When he got his first important command, he said, "I am very thankful to my kind heavenly Father for having given me such a fine brigade." After Bull Run, nettled at not having Ibid., p. 200. got what he deemed his fair share of newspaper notice, he wrote to his wife, "God made my brigade more instrumental than any other in repulsing the main attack"; and again, "My brigade is not a Ibid., p. 229. brigade of newspaper correspondents. I know that the First Brigade was the first to meet and pass our retreating forces, to push on with no other aid than the smiles of God, to arrest the victorious foe," etc., etc. Later, when the honors he had so fairly won began to come to him, he wrote, "I am very thankful to that good God who withholds no good thing from me (though I am so utterly unworthy and so ungrateful) for making me a major-general of the provisional army of the Confederate States." His joy at his promotion, however, did not prevent him from saying to his pastor, who was visiting his camp, that "promotion among men was a tempta