To the mourning of a sore-stricken nation Stonewall Jackson was carried to his rest. As the hearse passed to the Capitol, and the guns which had so lately proclaimed the victory of Chancellorsville thundered forth their requiem to the hero of the fight, the streets of Richmond were thronged with a silent and weeping multitude. In the Hall of Representatives, surrounded by a guard of infantry, the body lay in state; and thither, in their thousands, from the President to the maimed soldier, from the generals of the Valley army to wondering children, borne in their mothers’ arms, the people came to look their last upon the illustrious dead. The open coffin, placed before the Speaker’s chair, was draped in the Confederate standard; the State colours were furled along, the galleries; and the expression on the face, firm and resolute, as if the spirit of battle still lingered in the lifeless clay, was that of a great conqueror, wise in council, mighty in the strife. But as the evening drew on the darkened chamber, hung with deep mourning, and resounding to the clash of arms, lost its sombre and martial aspect. Garlands of soft spring flowers, the tribute of the women of Virginia, rose high above the bier, and white pyramids of lilies, the emblems of purity and meekness, recalled the blameless life of the Christian soldier.

From Richmond the remains were conveyed to Lexington, and, under the charge of the cadets, lay for the night in the lecture-room of the Institute, which Jackson had quitted just two years before. The next morning he was buried, as he himself had wished, in the little cemetery above the town.

1  Copyright 1898 by Longmans, Green, & Co.

LEE’S OPINION  477

Many were the mourners that stood around the grave, but they were few in number compared with those whose hearts were present on those silent hills. From the cities of the Atlantic coast to the far-off settlements of Texas the news that Stonewall Jackson had fallen came as a stunning blow. The people sorrowed for him with no ordinary grief, not as a great man and a good, who had done his duty and had gone to his reward, but as the pillar of their hopes and the sheet-anchor of the Confederate cause. Nor will those familiar with the further history of the Civil War, from the disaster of Gettysburg to the surrender at Appomattox, question the truth of this mournful presage. The Army of Northern Virginia became a different and less manageable instrument after Chancellorsville. Over and over again it failed to respond to the conceptions of its leader, and the failure was not due to the soldiers, but to the generals. Loyal and valiant as they were, of not one of his lieutenants could Lee say, as he had said of Jackson, “Such an executive officer the sun never shone on. I have but to show him my design, and I know that if it can be done it will be done. No need for me to send or watch him. Straight as the needle to the pole he advances to the execution of my purpose.”¹

These words have been quoted as an epitome of Jackson’s military character. “He was essentially,” says Swinton, “an executive officer, and in that sphere he was incomparable; but he was devoid of high mental parts, and destitute of that power of planning a combination, and of that calm, broad, military intelligence which distinguished General Lee.”² And this verdict, except in the South, has been generally accepted. Yet it rests on a most unsubstantial basis. Because Jackson knew so well how to obey it is asserted that he was not well fitted for independent command. Because he could carry out orders to the letter it is assumed that he was no master of strategy. Because his will was of iron, and his purpose, once fixed, never for a moment wavered, we are asked to believe that

1  Hon. Francis Lawley, the Times, June 16, 1863.
2  Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, p. 289.

LEE’S OPINION  478

his mental scope was narrow. Because he was silent in council, not eager in expressing his ideas, and averse to argument, it is implied that his opinions on matters of great moment were not worth the hearing. Because he was shy and unassuming; because he betrayed neither in face nor bearing, save in the heat of battle, any unusual power or consciousness of power, it is hastily concluded that he was deficient in the initiative, the breadth, and the penetration which are the distinguishing characteristics of great generals.

In these pages, however, it has been made clear that Jackson’s quiet demeanour concealed a vivid imagination, a fertile brain, and an extraordinary capacity for far-reaching combinations. After he had once made up his mind when and where to strike, it is true that his methods of war were very simple, and his blows those of a sledgehammer. But simplicity of design and vigour of execution are often marks of the very highest military ability. “Genius,” says Napier, “is not extravagant; it is ardent, and it conceives great projects; but it knows beforehand how to attain the result, and it uses the simplest means, because its faculties are essentially calculating, industrious, and patient. It is creative, because its knowledge is vast; it is quick and peremptory, not because it is presumptuous, but because it is well-prepared.” And Swinton’s verdict would have been approved by few of the soldiers of the Civil War. It was not the verdict of Lee. Significant indeed was the cry of the great Confederate, the soul of truth as of generosity, when Jackson was wounded: “Could I have directed events, I should have chosen, for the good of the country, to have been disabled in your stead.” It was not the verdict of the Southern people. “No man,” it was said by one who knew them well, “had so magnificent prospect before him as General Jackson. Whether he desired it or not, he could not have escaped being Governor of Virginia, and also, in the opinion of competent judges, sooner or later President of the Confederacy.”¹ Nor was it the verdict of the foe. “Stonewall Jackson,” wrote General Howard, commanding the Eleventh Corps

1  Hon. Francis Lawley, the Times, June 11, 1863.

THE AMERICAN GENERALS  479

at Chancellorsville, “was victorious. Even his enemies praise him; but, providentially for us, it was the last battle he waged against the American Union. For, in bold planning, in energy of execution, which he had the power to diffuse, in indefatigable activity and moral ascendency, he stood head and shoulders above his confrères, and after his death General Lee could not replace him.”¹

It can hardly be questioned that, at the time of his death, Jackson was the leader most trusted by the Confederates and most dreaded by the Federals. His own soldiers, and with them the whole population of the South, believed him capable of any task, invincible except by fate. It never, indeed, fell to Jackson’s lot to lead a great army or to plan a great campaign. The operations in the Valley, although decisive in their results, were comparatively insignificant, in respect both of the numbers employed and of the extent of the theatre. Jackson was not wholly independent. His was but a secondary role, and he had to weigh at every turn the orders and instructions of his superiors. His hand was never absolutely free. His authority did not reach beyond certain limits, and his operations were confined to one locality. He was never permitted to cross the border, and “carry the war into Africa.” Nor when he joined Lee before Richmond was the restraint removed. In the campaign against Pope, and in the reduction of Harper’s Ferry, he was certainly entrusted with tasks which led to a complete severance from the main body, but the severance was merely temporary. He was the most trusted of Lee’s lieutenants, but he was only a lieutenant. He had never the same liberty of action as those of his contemporaries who rose to historic fame—as Lee himself, as Johnston or Beauregard, as Grant, or Sherman, or as Sheridan—and consequently he had never a real opportunity for revealing the height and breadth of his military genius.

The Civil War was prolific of great leaders. The young American generals, inexperienced as they were in dealing with large armies, and compelled to improvise their tactics as they improvised their staff, displayed a talent for

1  Battles and Leaders, vol. iii, p. 202.

THE AMERICAN GENERALS  480

command such as soldiers more regularly trained could hardly have surpassed. Neither the deficiencies of their material nor the difficulties of the theatre of war were to be lightly overcome; and yet their methods displayed a refreshing originality. Not only in mechanical auxiliaries did the inventive genius of their race find scope. The principles which govern civilised warfare, the rules which control the employment of each arm, the technical and mechanical arts, were rapidly modified to the exigencies of the troops and of the country. Cavalry, intrenchments, the railway, the telegraph, balloons, signalling, were all used in a manner which had been hitherto unknown. Monitors and torpedoes were for the first time seen, and even the formations of infantry were made sufficiently elastic to meet the requirements of a modern battle-field. Nor was the conduct of the operations fettered by an adherence to conventional practice. From first to last the campaigns were characterised by daring and often skilful manœuvres; and if the tactics of the battle-field were often less brilliant than the preceding movements, not only are parallels to these tactics to be found in almost every campaign of history, but they would probably have escaped criticism had the opponent been less skilful. But among the galaxy of leaders, Confederate and Federal, in none had the soldiers such implicit confidence as in Stonewall Jackson, and than the Southern soldiers, highly educated as many of them were, no better judges of military capacity were ever known.

Nevertheless, the opinion of the soldiers is no convincing proof that Jackson was equal to the command of a large army, or that he could have carried through a great campaign. Had Lee been disabled, it might be asked, would Jackson have proved a sufficient substitute?

It has already been explained that military genius shows itself first in character, and, second, in the application of the grand principles of warfare, not in the mere manipulation of armed masses. It cannot well be denied that Jackson possessed every single attribute which makes for success in war. Morally and physically he was absolutely fearless. He accepted responsibility with the same equanimity that

JACKSON’S AGGRESSIVE NATURE  481

he faced the bullets of the enemy. He permitted no obstacle to turn him aside from his appointed path, and in seizing an opportunity or in following up a victory he was the very incarnation of untiring energy. He had no moments of weakness. He was not robust, and his extraordinary exertions told upon his constitution. “My health,” he wrote to his wife in January 1863, “is essentially good, but I do not think I shall be able in future to stand what I have already stood;” and yet his will invariably rose superior to bodily exhaustion. A supreme activity, both of brain and body, was a prominent characteristic of his military life. His idea of strategy was to secure the initiative, however inferior his force; to create opportunities and to utilise them; to waste no time, and to give the enemy no rest. “War,” he said, “means fighting. The business of the soldier is to fight. Armies are not called out to dig trenches, to throw up breastworks, to live in camps, but to find the enemy and strike him; to invade his country, and do him all possible damage in the shortest possible time. This will involve great destruction of life and property while it lasts; but such a war will of necessity be of brief continuance, and so would be an economy of life and property in the end. To move swiftly, strike vigorously, and secure all the fruits of victory is the secret of successful war.”

That he felt to the full the fascination of war’s tremendous game we can hardly doubt. Not only did he derive, as all true soldiers must, an intense intellectual pleasure from handling his troops in battle so as to outwit and defeat his adversary, but from the day he first smelt powder in Mexico until he led that astonishing charge through the dark depths of the Wilderness his spirits never rose higher than when danger and death were rife about him. With all his gentleness there was much of the old Berserker about Stonewall Jackson, not indeed the lust for blood, but the longing to do doughtily and die bravely, as best becomes a man. His nature was essentially aggressive. He was never more to be feared than when he was retreating, and where others thought only of strong defensive positions he looked persistently for the opportunity to attack. He was

JACKSON’S AGGRESSIVE NATURE  482

endowed, like Masséna, “with that rare fortitude which seems to increase as perils thicken. When conquered he was as ready to fight again as if he had been conqueror.” “L’audace, l’audace, et toujours l’audace” was the mainspring of all his actions, and the very sights and sounds of a stricken field were dear to his soul. Nothing had such power to stir his pulses as the rebel yell. “I remember,” says a staff-officer, “one night, at tattoo, that this cry broke forth in the camp of the Stonewall Brigade, and was taken up by brigades and divisions until it rang out far over field and woods. The general came hastily and bareheaded from his tent, and leaning on a fence near by, listened in silence to the rise, the climax, and the fall of that strange serenade, raising his head to catch the sound, as it grew fainter and fainter and died away at last like an echo among the mountains. Then, turning towards his tent, he muttered in half soliloquy, ‘That was the sweetest music I ever heard.’ ”

Yet least of all was Jackson a mere fighting soldier, trusting to his lucky star and resolute blows to pull him through. He was not, indeed, one of those generals who seek to win victories without shedding blood. He never spared his men, either in marching or fighting, when a great result was to be achieved, and he was content with nothing less than the complete annihilation of the enemy. “Had we taken ten sail,” said Nelson, “and allowed the eleventh to escape, when it had been possible to have got at her, I could never have called it well done.” Jackson was of the same mind. “With God’s blessing,” he said before the Valley campaign, “let us make thorough work of it.” When once he had joined battle, no loss, no suffering was permitted to stay his hand. He never dreamed of retreat until he had put in his last reserve. Yet his victories were won rather by sweat than blood, by skilful manœuvring rather than sheer hard fighting. Solicitous as he was of the comfort of his men, he had no hesitation, when his opportunity was ripe, of taxing their powers of endurance to the uttermost. But the marches which strewed the wayside with the footsore and the weaklings won his battles. The enemy, surprised and outnumbered, was practically beaten before

JACKSON’S INSIGHT  483

a shot was fired, and success was attained at a trifling cost.

Yet, despite his energy, Jackson was eminently patient. He knew when to refuse battle, just as well as he knew when to deliver it. He was never induced to fight except on his own terms, that is, on his own ground, and at his own time, save at Kernstown only, and there the strategical situation forced his hand. And he was eminently cautious. Before he committed himself to movement he deliberated long, and he never attacked until he had ample information. He ran risks, and great ones, but in war the nettle danger must be boldly grasped, and in Jackson’s case the dangers were generally more apparent than real. Under his orders the cavalry became an admirable instrument of reconnaissance. He showed a marked sagacity for selecting scouts, both officers and privates, and his system for obtaining intelligence was well-nigh perfect. He had the rare faculty, which would appear instinctive, but which is the fruit of concentrated thought allied to a wide knowledge of war, of divining the intention of his adversary and the state of his moral. His power of drawing inferences, often from seemingly unimportant trifles, was akin to that of the hunter of his native backwoods, to whom the rustle of a twig, the note of a bird, a track upon the sand, speak more clearly than written characters. His estimate of the demoralisation of the Federal army after Bull Run, and of the ease with which Washington might have been captured, was absolutely correct. In the middle of May, 1862, both Lee and Johnston, notwithstanding Jackson’s victory over Milroy, anticipated that Banks would leave the Valley. Jackson thought otherwise, and Jackson was right. After the bloody repulse at Malvern Hill, when his generals reported the terrible confusion in the Confederate ranks, he simply stated his opinion that the enemy was retreating, and went to sleep again. A week later he suggested that the whole army should move against Pope, for McClellan, he said, would never dare to march on Richmond. At Sharpsburg, as the shells cut the trees to pieces in the West Wood, and the heavy

JACKSON’S INSIGHT  484

masses of Federal infantry filled the fields in front, he told his medical director that McClellan had done his worst. At Fredericksburg, after the first day’s battle, he believed that the enemy was already defeated, and, anticipating their escape under cover of the darkness, he advised a night attack with the bayonet. His knowledge of his adversary’s character, derived, in great degree, from his close observation of every movement, enabled him to predict with astonishing accuracy exactly how he would act under given circumstances.

Nor can he be charged in any single instance with neglect of precautions by which the risks of war are diminished. He appears to have thought out and to have foreseen—and here his imaginative power aided him—every combination that could be made against him, and to have provided for every possible emergency. He was never surprised, never disconcerted, never betrayed into a false manœuvre. Although on some occasions his success fell short of his expectations, the fault was not his; his strategy was always admirable, but fortune, in one guise or another—the indiscipline of the cavalry, the inefficiency of subordinates, the difficulties of the country—interfered with the full accomplishment of his designs. But whatever could be done to render fortune powerless that Jackson did. By means of his cavalry, by forced marches, by the careful selection of his line of march, of his camps, of his positions, of his magazines, and lastly, by his consistent reticence, he effectually concealed from the Federals both his troops and his designs. Never surprised himself, he seldom failed to surprise his enemies, if not tactically—that is, while they were resting in their camps—at least strategically. Kernstown came as a surprise to Banks, McDowell to Frémont. Banks believed Jackson to be at Harrisonburg when he had already defeated the detachment at Front Royal. At Cross Keys and Port Republic neither Frémont nor Shields expected that their flying foe would suddenly turn at bay. Pope was unable to support Banks at Cedar Run till the battle had been decided. When McClellan on the Chickahominy was informed that the Valley army had joined Lee

JACKSON’S BREADTH OF VIEW  485

it was too late to alter his dispositions, and no surprise was ever more complete than Chancellorsville.

And the mystery that always involved Jackson’s movements was undoubtedly the result of calculation, He knew the effect his sudden appearances and disappearances would have on the moral of the Federal generals, and he relied as much on upsetting the mental equilibrium of his opponents as on concentrating against them superior numbers. Nor was his view confined to the field of battle and his immediate adversary. It embraced the whole theatre of war. The motive power which ruled the enemy’s politics as well as his armies was always his real objective. From the very first he recognised the weakness of the Federal position—the anxiety with which the President and the people regarded Washington—and on this anxiety he traded. Every blow struck in the Valley campaign, from Kernstown to Cross Keys, was struck at Lincoln and his Cabinet; every movement, including the advance against Pope on Cedar Run, was calculated with reference to the effect it would produce in the Federal councils; and if he consistently advocated invasion, it was not because Virginia would be relieved of the enemy’s presence, but because treaties of peace are only signed within sight of the hostile capital.

It has been urged that the generals whom Jackson defeated were men of inferior stamp, and that his capacity for command was consequently never fairly tested. Had Grant or Sheridan, it is said, been pitted against him in the Valley, or Sherman or Thomas on the Rappahannock, his laurels would never have been won. The contention is fair. Generals of such calibre as Banks and Frémont, Shields and Pope, committed blunders which the more skilful leaders would undoubtedly have avoided; and again, had he been pitted against a worthy antagonist, Jackson would probably have acted with less audacity and greater caution. It is difficult to conceive, however, that the fact would either have disturbed his brain or weakened his resolution. Few generals, apparently, have been caught in worse predicaments than he was; first, when his army was near Harper’s Ferry, and Frémont and Shields were converging on his

JACKSON’S TACTICS  486

rear; second, when he lay in the woods near Groveton, with no news from Longstreet, and Pope’s army all around him; third, when he was marching by the Brock road to strike Hooker’s right, and Sickles’ column struck in between himself and Lee. But it was at such junctures as these that his self-possession was most complete and his skill most marked. The greater the peril, the more fixed became his purpose. The capacity of the opponent, moreover, cannot be accepted as the true touchstone of generalship. “The greatest general,” said Napoleon, “is he who makes the fewest mistakes,” i.e. he who neither neglects an opportunity nor offers one.

Thus tested Jackson has few superiors. During the whole of the two years he held command he never committed a single error. At Mechanicsville, and again at Frayser’s Farm, the failure to establish some method of intercommunication left his column isolated; this, however, was a failure in staff duties, for which the Confederate headquarters was more to blame than himself. And further, how sure and swift was the retribution which followed a mistake committed within his sphere of action! What opportunity did Jackson miss? His penetration was unerring; and when, after he had marked his prey, did he ever hesitate to swoop? “What seemed reckless audacity,” it has been well said by one of the greatest of Southern soldiers, “was the essence of prudence. His eye had caught at a glance the entire situation, and his genius, with marvellous celerity and accuracy, had weighed all the chances of success or failure. While, therefore, others were slowly feeling their way, or employing in detail insufficient forces, Jackson, without for one moment doubting his success, hurled his army like a thunderbolt against the opposing lines, and thus ended the battle at a single blow.”¹

But if Jackson never failed to take advantage of his

1  General J. B. Gordon, Commanding 2nd Army Corps, Army of Northern Virginia. “Jackson,” says one of his staff, “never changed an order on the battlefield when he had once given it. I have seen Ewell, Early, A. P. Hill, and even Lee send an aide with an order, and in a few minutes send another messenger to recall or alter it.” Letter to the author.

JACKSON’S TACTICS  487

opponent’s blunders, it might be said that he sometimes laid himself open to defeat. Grant and Sheridan, had they been in place of Shields and Frémont, would hardly have suffered him to escape from Harper’s Ferry; Sherman would probably have crushed him at the Second Manassas; Thomas would not have been surprised at Chancellorsville. But Jackson only pushed daring to its limits when it was safe to do so. He knew the men he had to deal with. And in whatever situation he might find himself he invariably reserved more than one means of escape.

On the field of battle his manœuvres were always sound and often brilliant. He never failed to detect the key-point of a position, or to make the best use of the ground. On the defensive his flanks were always strong and his troops concealed both from view and fire; on the offensive he invariably attacked where he was least expected. He handled the three arms, infantry, cavalry, and artillery, in the closest combination and with the maximum of effect. Except at Kernstown, where Garnett interfered, his reserve was invariably put in at exactly the right moment, and he so manipulated his command that he was always strongest at the decisive point. Nor did he forget that a battle is only half won where there is no pursuit, and whenever he held command upon the field, his troops, especially the cavalry, were so disposed that from the very outset the enemy’s retreat was menaced. The soldiers, sharers in his achievements, compared his tactical leading with that of others, and gave the palm to Jackson. An officer of his staff, who served continuously with the Army of Northern Virginia, says: “I was engaged in no great battle subsequent to Jackson’s death in which I did not see the opportunity which, in my opinion, he would have seized, and have routed our opponents;”¹ and General Lane writes that on many a hard-fought field, subsequent to Chancellorsville, he heard his veterans exclaim: “Oh for another Jackson!”

Until Jackson fell the Army of Northern Virginia, except when his advice was overruled, had never missed an opening. Afterwards it missed many. Gettysburg, which

1  Major Hotchkiss, C.S.A.

JACKSON’S TACTICS  488

should have been decisive of the war, was pre-eminently a battle of lost opportunities, and there are others which fall into the same category. It is a perfectly fair assumption, then, that Jackson, so unerring was his insight, would not only have proved an efficient substitute for Lee, but that he would have won such fame as would have placed him, as it placed his great commander, among the most illustrious soldiers of all ages. With any of his contemporaries, not even excepting Lee, he compares more than favourably. Most obedient of subordinates as he was, his strategical views were not always in accordance with those of his Commander-in-Chief. If Jackson had been in charge of the operations, the disastrous battle of Malvern Hill would never have been fought; Pope would have been cut off from the Rappahannock; McClellan would have found the whole Confederate army arrayed against him at South Mountain, or would have been attacked near Frederick; and Burnside would have been encountered on the North Anna, where defeat would probably have proved his ruin. It is difficult to compare him with Lee. A true estimate of Lee’s genius is impossible, for it can never be known to what extent his designs were thwarted by the Confederate Government. Lee served Mr. Davis; Jackson served Lee, wisest and most helpful of masters. It would seem, however, that Jackson in one respect was Lee’s superior. His courage, physical and moral, was not more brilliant or more steadfast; his tactical skill no greater; but he was made of sterner stuff. His self-confidence was supreme. He never doubted his ability, with God’s help, to carry out any task his judgment approved. Lee, on the other hand, was oppressed by a consciousness of his own shortcomings. Jackson never held but one council of war. Lee seldom made an important movement without consulting his corps commanders. Jackson kept his subordinates in their place, exacting from his generals the same implicit obedience he exacted from his corporals. Lee lost the battle of Gettysburg because he allowed his second in command to argue instead of marching. Nor was that political courage, which Nelson declared is as necessary for a commander as

GRANT AND JACKSON  489

military courage, a component part of Lee’s character.¹ On assuming command of the Army of Northern Virginia, in spite of Mr. Davis’ protestations, he resigned the control of the whole forces of the Confederacy, and he submitted without complaint to interference. Jackson’s action when Loring’s regiments were ordered back by the Secretary of War is sufficient proof that he would have brooked no meddling with his designs when once they had received the sanction of the Cabinet. At the same time, it must remain undetermined whether Jackson was equal to the vast responsibilities which Lee bore with such steadfast courage; whether he could have administered a great army, under the most untoward circumstances, with the same success; whether he could have assuaged the jealousies of the different States, and have dealt so tactfully with both officers and men that there should have been no friction between Virginians and Georgians, Texans and Carolinians.

It is probable that Jackson’s temper was more akin to Grant’s than Lee’s. Grant had the same whole-hearted regard for the cause; the same disregard for the individual. He was just as ready as Jackson to place a recalcitrant subordinate, no matter how high his rank, under instant arrest, and towards the incompetent and unsuccessful he was just as pitiless. Jackson, however, had the finer intellect. The Federal Commander-in-Chief was unquestionably a great soldier, greater than those who overlook his difficulties in the ’64 campaign are disposed to admit. As a strategist he ranks high. But Grant was no master of stratagem. There was no mystery about his operations. His manœuvres were strong and straightforward, but he had no skill in deceiving his adversary, and his tactics were not always of a high order. It may be questioned whether on the field of battle his ability was equal to that of Sherman, or of Sherman’s great antagonist, Johnston. Elsewhere he was their superior. Both Sherman and Johnston were methodical rather than brilliant; patient, confident, and far-seeing as they were, strictly observant of the established principles of war, they were without a

1  Lord Wolseley, Macmillan’s Magazine, March, 1887.

GRANT AND JACKSON  490

touch of that aggressive genius which distinguished Lee, Grant, and Jackson.

Nevertheless, to put Jackson above Grant is to place him high on the list of illustrious captains. Yet the claim is not extravagant. If his military characteristics are compared with those of so great a soldier as Wellington, it will be seen that in many respects they run on parallel lines. Both had perfect confidence in their own capacity. “I can do,” said Jackson, “whatever I will to do;” while the Duke, when a young general in India, congratulated himself that he had learned not to be deterred by apparent impossibilities. Both were patient, fighting on their own terms, or fighting not at all. Both were prudent, and yet, when audacity was justified by the character of their opponent and the condition of his troops, they took no counsel of their fears. They were not enamoured of the defensive, for they knew the value of the initiative, and that offensive strategy is the strategy which annihilates. Yet, when their enemy remained concentrated, they were content to wait till they could induce him to disperse. Both were masters of ruse and stratagem, and the Virginian was as industrious as the Englishman. And in yet another respect they were alike. “In issuing orders or giving verbal instruction, Jackson’s words were few and simple; but they were so clear, so comprehensive and direct, that no officer could possibly misunderstand, and none dared disobey.”¹ Exactly the same terms might be applied to Wellington. Again, although naturally impetuous, glorying in war, they had no belief in a lucky star; their imagination was always controlled by common-sense, and, unlike Napoleon, their ambition to succeed was always subordinate to their judgment. Yet both, when circumstances were imperative, were greatly daring. The attacks at Groveton and at Chancellorsville were enterprises instinct with the same intensity of resolution as the storm of Badajos and Ciudad Rodrigo, the passage of the Douro, the great counterstroke of Salamanca. On the field of battle the one was not more vigilant nor imperturbable than the other, and both possessed a due

1  General J. B. Gordon.

SURPRISE  491

sense of proportion. They knew exactly how much they could effect themselves, and how much must be left to others. Recognising that when once the action had opened the sphere in which their authority could be exercised was very limited, they gave their subordinates a free hand, issuing few orders, and encouraging their men rather by example than by words. Both, too, had that “most rare faculty of coming to prompt and sure conclusions in sudden exigencies—the certain mark of a master-spirit in war.”¹ At Bull Run, Jackson was ordered to support Evans at the Stone Bridge. Learning that the left was compromised, without a moment’s hesitation he turned aside, and placed his brigade in the only position where it could have held its ground. At Groveton, when he received the news that the Federal left wing was retreating on Centreville across his front, the order for attack was issued almost before he had read the dispatch. At Chancellorsville, when General Fitzhugh Lee showed him the enemy’s right wing dispersed and unsuspecting, he simply turned to his courier and said, “Let the column cross the road,” and his plan of battle was designed with the same rapidity as Wellington’s at Salamanca or Assaye.

It has been already pointed out that Jackson’s dispositions for defence differed in no degree from those of the great Duke. His visit to Waterloo, perhaps, taught the American soldier the value and importance of concealing his troops on the defensive. It was not, however, from Wellington that he learned to keep his plans to himself and to use every effort to mislead his adversary. Yet no general, not even Napoleon himself, brought about so many startling surprises as Wellington. The passage of the Douro, the storm of the frontier fortresses, the flank attack at Vittoria, the passage of the Adour, the passage of the Bidassoa—were each and all of them utterly unexpected by the French marshals; and those were by no means the only, or the most conspicuous, instances. Was ever general more surprised than Masséna, when pursuing his retreating foe through Portugal, in full anticipation of “driving the leopards

1  Napier.

NAPOLEON  492

into the sea,” he suddenly saw before him the frowning lines of Torres Vedras, the great fortress which had sprung from earth, as it were, at the touch of a magician’s wand?

The dispatches and correspondence of the generals who were opposed to Wellington are the clearest evidence of his extraordinary skill. Despite their long experience, their system of spies, their excellent cavalry, superior, during the first years of the Peninsular War, both in numbers and training, to the English, it was seldom indeed that the French had more than the vaguest knowledge of his movements, his intentions, or his strength. On no other theatre of war—and they were familiar with many—had they encountered so mysterious an enemy. And what was the result? Constantly surprised themselves, they at length hesitated to attack even isolated detachments. At Guinaldo, in 1812, Marmont, with 30,000 soldiers, refused to assault a ridge occupied by no more than 13,000. The morning of Quatre-Bras, when that important position was but thinly held, even Ney was reluctant to engage. In the judgment of himself and his subordinates, who had met Wellington before, the fact that there were but few red jackets to be seen was no proof whatever that the whole allied army was not close at hand, and the opportunity was suffered to escape. Other generals have been content with surprising the enemy when they advanced against him; Wellington and Jackson sought to do so even when they were confined to the defensive.

And in still another respect may a likeness be found. Jackson’s regard for truth was not more scrupulous than Wellington’s. Neither declined to employ every legitimate means of deceiving their enemies, but both were absolutely incapable of self-deception. And this characteristic was not without effect on their military conduct. Although never deterred by difficulties, they distinguished clearly between the possible and the impossible. To gain great ends they were willing to run risks, but if their plans are carefully considered, it will be seen that the margin left to chance was small. The odds were invariably in their favour. In conception as in execution obstacles were

NAPOLEON  493

resolutely faced, and they were constitutionally unable to close their eyes to contingencies that might prove ruinous. The promise of great results was never suffered to cajole them into ignoring the perils that might beset their path. Imagination might display in vivid colours the success that might accrue from some audacious venture, but if one step was obscure the idea was unhesitatingly rejected. Undazzled by the prospect of personal glory, they formed “a true, not an untrue, picture of the business to be done,” and their plans, consequently, were without a flaw. Brilliant, indeed, were the campaigns of Napoleon, and astonishing his successes, but he who had so often deceived others in the end deceived himself. Accustomed to the dark dealings of intrigue and chicanery, his judgment, once so penetrating, became blunted. He believed what he wished to believe, and not that which was fact. More than once in his later campaigns he persuaded himself that the chances were with him when in reality they were terribly against him. He trusted to the star that had befriended him at Marengo and at Aspern; that is, he would not admit the truth, even to himself, that he had been overdaring, that it was fortune, and fortune alone, that had saved him from destruction, and Moscow and Vittoria, Leipsic and Waterloo, were the result.

But although there was a signal resemblance, both in their military characters as in their methods of war, between Wellington and Jackson, the parallel cannot be pushed beyond certain well-defined limits. It is impossible to compare their intellectual capacity. Wellington was called to an ampler field and far heavier responsibilities. Not as a soldier alone, but as financier, diplomatist, statesman, he had his part to play. While Napoleon languished on his lonely island, his great conqueror, the plenipotentiary of his own Government, the most trusted counsellor of many sovereigns, the adviser of foreign Administrations, was universally acknowledged as the mastermind of Europe. Nor was the mark which Wellington left on history insignificant. The results of his victories were lasting. The freedom of the nations was restored to them,

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and land and sea became the thoroughfares of peace. America, on the other hand, owes no single material benefit to Stonewall Jackson. In the cause of progress or of peace he accomplished nothing. The principle he fought for, the right of secession, lives no longer, even in the South. He won battles. He enhanced the reputation of American soldiers. He proved in his own person that the manhood of Virginia had suffered no decay. And this was all. But the fruits of a man’s work are not to be measured by a mere utilitarian standard. In the minds of his own countrymen the memory of Wellington is hallowed not so much by his victories, as by his unfaltering honesty and his steadfast regard for duty, and the life of Stonewall Jackson is fraught with lessons of still deeper import.

Not only with the army, but with the people of the South, his influence while he lived was very great. From him thousands and ten thousands of Confederate soldiers learned the self-denial which is the root of all religion, the self-control which is the root of all manliness.¹ Beyond the confines of the camps he was personally unknown. In the social and political circles of Richmond his figure was unfamiliar. When his body lay in state the majority of those who passed through the Hall of Representatives looked upon his features for the first time. He had never been called to council by the President, and the members of the Legislature, with but few exceptions, had no acquaintance with the man who acted while they deliberated. But his fame had spread far and wide, and not merely the fame of his victories, but of his Christian character. The rare union of strength and simplicity, of child-like faith and the most fiery energy, had attracted the sympathy of the whole country, of the North as well as of the South; and beyond the Atlantic, where with breathless interest the parent islands were watching the issue of the mighty conflict, it seemed that another Cromwell without Cromwell’s ambition, or that another Wolfe with more than Wolfe’s ability, had arisen among the soldiers of the youngest of nations. And this interest was intensified by his untimely end.

1  See Note at end of volume.

JACKSON’S INFLUENCE  495

When it was reported that Jackson had fallen, men murmured in their dismay against the fiat of the Almighty. “Why,” they asked, “had one so pure and so upright been suddenly cut down?” Yet a sufficient answer was not far to seek. To the English race, in whatever quarter of the globe it holds dominion, to the race of Alfred and De Montfort, of Bruce and Hampden, of Washington and Gordon, the ideal of manhood has ever been a high one. Self-sacrifice and the single heart are the attributes which it most delights to honour; and chief amongst its accepted heroes are those soldier-saints who, sealing their devotion with their lives, have won

Death’s royal purple in the foeman’s lines.

So, from his narrow grave on the green hillside at Lexington, Jackson speaks with voice more powerful than if, passing peacefully away, in the fulness of years and honours, he had found a resting-place in some proud sepulchre, erected by a victorious and grateful commonwealth. And who is there who can refuse to listen? His creed may not be ours; but in whom shall we find a firmer faith, a mind more humble, a sincerity more absolute? He had his temptations like the rest of us. His passions were strong; his temper was hot; forgiveness never came easily to him, and he loved power. He dreaded strong liquor because he liked it; and if in his nature there were great capacities for good, there were none the less, had it been once perverted, great capacities for evil. Fearless and strong, self-dependent and ambitious, he had within him the making of a Napoleon, and yet his name is without spot or blemish. From his boyhood onward, until he died on the Rappahannock, he was the very model of a Christian gentleman:—

E’en as he trod that day to God, so walked he from his birth,
In simpleness, and gentleness, and honour, and clean mirth.

Paradox as it may sound, the great rebel was the most loyal of men. His devotion to Virginia was hardly surpassed by his devotion to his wife. And he made no secret

THE CHRISTIAN HERO  496

of his absolute dependence on a higher power. Every action was a prayer, for every action was begun and ended in the name of the Almighty. Consciously and unconsciously, in deed as in word, in the quiet of his home and in the tumult of battle, he fastened to his soul those golden chains “that bind the whole round earth about the feet of God.” Nor was their burden heavy. “He was the happiest man,” says one of his friends, “I ever knew,” and he was wont to express his surprise that others were less happy than himself.

But there are few with Jackson’s power of concentration. He fought evil with the same untiring energy that he fought the North. His relations to his moral duties were governed by the same strong purpose, the same clear perception of the aim to be achieved, and of the means whereby it was to be achieved, as his manœuvres on the field of battle. He was always thorough. And it was because he was thorough—true, steadfast, and consistent, that he reached the heroic standard. His attainments were not varied. His interests, so far as his life’s work was concerned, were few and narrow. Beyond his religion and the army he seldom permitted his thoughts to stray. His acquaintance with art was small. He meddled little with politics. His scholarship was not profound, and he was neither sportsman nor naturalist. Compared with many of the prominent figures of history the range of his capacity was limited.

And yet Jackson’s success in his own sphere was phenomenal, while others, perhaps of more pronounced ability, seeking success in many different directions, have failed to find it in a single one. Even when we contrast his recorded words with the sayings of those whom the world calls great—statesmen, orators, authors—his inferiority is hardly apparent. He saw into the heart of things, both human and divine, far deeper than most men. He had an extraordinary facility for grasping the essential and discarding the extraneous. His language was simple and direct, without elegance or embellishment, and yet no one has excelled him in crystallising great principles in a single phrase. The few maxims which fell from his lips are

THE CHRISTIAN HERO  497

almost a complete summary of the art of war. Neither Frederick, nor Wellington, nor Napoleon realised more deeply the simple truths which ever since men first took up arms have been the elements of success; and not Hampden himself beheld with clearer insight the duties and obligations which devolve on those who love their country well, but freedom more.

It is possible that the conflicts of the South are not yet ended. In America men pray for peace, but dark and mysterious forces, threatening the very foundations of civic liberty, are stirring even now beneath their feet. The War of Secession may be the precursor of a fiercer and a mightier struggle, and the volunteers of the Confederacy, enduring all things and sacrificing all things, the prototype and model of a new army, in which North and South shall march to battle side by side. Absit omen! But in whatever fashion his own countrymen may deal with the problems of the future, the story of Stonewall Jackson will tell them in what spirit they should be faced. Nor has that story a message for America alone. The hero who lies buried at Lexington, in the Valley of Virginia, belongs to a race that is not confined to a single continent; and to those who speak the same tongue, and in whose veins the same blood flows, his words come home like an echo of all that is noblest in their history: “What is life without honour? Degradation is worse than death. We must think of the living and of those who are to come after us, and see that by God’s blessing we transmit to them the freedom we have ourselves inherited.”

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NOTE I

Mr. W. P. St. John, President of the Mercantile Bank of New York, relates the following incident:—A year or two ago he was in the Shenandoah Valley with General Thomas Jordan, C.S.A., and at the close of the day they found themselves at the foot of the mountains in a wild and lonely place; there was no village, and no house, save a rough shanty for the use of the “track-walker” on the railroad. It was not an attractive place for rest, yet here they were forced to pass the night, and to sit down to such supper as might be provided in so desolate a spot. The unprepossessing look of everything was completed when the host came in and took his seat at the head of the table. A bear out of the woods could hardly have been rougher, with his unshaven hair and unkempt beard. He answered to the type of border ruffian, and his appearance suggested the dark deeds that might be done here in secret, and hidden in the forest gloom. Imagine the astonishment of the travellers when this rough backwoodsman rapped on the table and bowed his head. And such a prayer! “Never,” says Mr. St. John, “did I hear a petition that more evidently came from the heart. It was so simple, so reverent, so tender, so full of humility and penitence, as well as of thankfulness. We sat in silence, and as soon as we recovered ourselves I whispered to General Jordan, ‘Who can he be?’ To which he answered, ‘I don’t know, but he must be one of Stonewall Jackson’s old soldiers.’ And he was. As we walked out in the open air, I accosted our new acquaintance, and after a few questions about the country, asked, ‘Were you in the war?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ he said with a smile, ‘I was out with Old Stonewall.’ ”—Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. xix, p. 871.

  499

NOTE II

LIST OF KILLED AND WOUNDED (EXCLUDING PRISONERS) IN
GREAT BATTLES

(The victorious side is given first)

NOTE II  500

NOTE II  501

NOTE II  502

NOTE II  503

Although this return has been compiled from the most trustworthy sources, it can only be taken as approximately accurate.

BRITISH LOSSES

* In those marked by an asterisk the force formed part of an allied army.
† In these battles Indian troops took part.

Contents Volume I
Contents Volume II
Chapter XXIV