Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War
Jackson, as has been said so eloquently of the men whom, in some
respects, he closely resembled, that “his Bible was literally food to
his understanding and a guide to his conduct. He saw the visible finger
of God in every incident of life. . . . That which in our day devout
men and women feel in their earnest moments of prayer, the devout
Puritan felt, as a second nature, in his rising up and in his lying
down; in the market-place and in the home; in society and in business;
in Parliament, in Council, and on the field of battle. And feeling
this, the Puritan had no shame in uttering the very words of the Bible
wherein he had learned so to feel; nay, he would have burned with shame
had he faltered in using the words. It is very hard for us now to grasp
what this implies. . . . But there was a generation in which this
phraseology was the natural speech of men.”[5] Of this generation,
although later in time, was Stonewall Jackson. To him such language as
he used in his letters to his wife, in conversation with his intimates,
and not rarely in his official
correspondence, was “the literal assertion of truths which he felt to
the roots of his being,” which absorbed his thoughts, which coloured
every action of his life, and which, from the abundance of his heart,
rose most naturally to his lips.
There is no need for further allusion to his domestic or religious
life. If in general society Jackson was wanting in geniality; if he was
so little a man of the world that his example lost much of the
influence which, had he stood less aloof from others, it must have
exercised, it was the fruit of his early training, his natural reserve,
and his extreme humility. It is impossible, however, that so pure a
life should have been altogether without reflex upon others. If the
cadets profited but indirectly, the slaves had cause to bless his
practical Christianity; the poor and the widow knew him as a friend,
and his neighbours looked up to him as the soul of sincerity, the enemy
of all that was false and vile. And for himself—what share had those
years of quiet study, of self-communing, and of self-discipline, in
shaping the triumphs of the Confederate arms? The story of his military
career is the reply.
Men of action have before now deplored the incessant press of business
which leaves them no leisure to think out the problems which may
confront them in the future. Experience is of little value without
reflection, and leisure has its disadvantages. “One can comprehend,”
says Dabney, referring to Jackson’s peculiar form of mental exercise,
“how valuable was the training which his mind received for his work as
a soldier. Command over his attention was formed into a habit which no
tempest of confusion could disturb. His power of abstraction became
unrivalled. His imagination was trained and invigorated until it became
capable of grouping the most extensive and complex considerations. The
power of his mind was drilled like the strength of an athlete, and his
self-concentration became unsurpassed.”
Such training was undoubtedly the very best foundation for the
intellectual side of a general’s business. War presents a constant
succession of problems to be solved by
mental processes. For some experience and resource supply a ready
solution. Others, involving the movements of large bodies,
considerations of time and space, and the thousand and one
circumstances, such as food, weather, roads, topography, and morale,
which a general must always bear in mind, are composed of so many
factors, that only a brain accustomed to hard thinking can deal with
them successfully. Of this nature are the problems of strategy—those
which confront a general in command of an army or of a detached portion
of an army, and which are worked out on the map. The problems of the
battle-field are of a different order. The natural characteristics
which, when fortified by experience, carry men through any dangerous
enterprise, win the majority of victories. But men may win battles and
be very poor generals. They may be born leaders of men, and yet
absolutely unfitted for independent command. Their courage, coolness,
and common sense may accomplish the enemy’s overthrow on the field, but
with strategical considerations their intellects may be absolutely
incapable of grappling. In the great wars of the early part of the
century Ney and Blucher were probably the best fighting generals of
France and Prussia. But neither could be trusted to conduct a campaign.
Blucher, pre-eminent on the battle-field, knew nothing of the grand
combinations which prepare and complete success. If he was the strong
right hand of the Prussian army, his chief of staff was the brain.
“Gneisenau,” said the old Marshal, “makes the pills which I
administer.” “Ney’s best qualities,” says Jomini, who served long on
his staff, “his heroic valour, his quick _coup d’œil,_ and his energy,
diminished in the same proportion that the extent of his command
increased his responsibility. Admirable on the field of battle, he
displayed less assurance, not only in council, but whenever he was not
actually face to face with the enemy.” It is not of such material as
Ney and Blucher, mistrustful of their own ability, that great captains
are made. Marked intellectual capacity is the chief characteristic of
the most famous soldiers. Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, Marlborough,
Washington, Frederick, Napoleon, Wellington, and Nelson were each and
all of
them something more than mere fighting men. Few of their age rivalled
them in strength of intellect. It was this, combined with the best
qualities of Ney and Blucher, that made them masters of strategy, and
lifted them high above those who were tacticians and nothing more; and
it was strength of intellect that Jackson cultivated at Lexington.
So, in that quiet home amidst the Virginian mountains, the years sped
by, peaceful and uneventful, varied only by the holiday excursions of
successive summers. By day, the lecture at the Institute, the drill of
the cadet battery, the work of the church, the pleasant toil of the
farm and garden. When night fell, and the curtains were drawn across
the windows that looked upon the quiet street, there in that home where
order reigned supreme, where, as the master wished, “each door turned
softly on a golden hinge,” came those hours of thought and analysis
which were to fit him for great deeds.
The even tenor of this calm existence was broken, however, by an
incident which intensified the bitter feeling which already divided the
Northern and Southern sections of the United States. During the month
of January, 1859, Jackson had marched with the cadet battalion to
Harper’s Ferry, where, on the northern frontier of Virginia, the
fanatic, John Brown, had attempted to raise an insurrection amongst the
negroes, and had been hung after trial in presence of the troops. By
the South Brown was regarded as a madman and a murderer; by many in the
North he was glorified as a martyr; and so acute was the tension that
early in 1860, during a short absence from Lexington, Jackson wrote in
a letter to his wife, “What do you think about the state of the
country? Viewing things at Washington from human appearances, I think
we have great reason for alarm.” A great crisis was indeed at hand. But
if to her who was ever beside him, while the storm clouds were rising
dark and terrible over the fair skies of the prosperous Republic, the
Christian soldier seemed the man best fitted to lead the people, it was
not so outside. None doubted his sincerity or questioned his
resolution, but few had penetrated his reserve. As the playful
tenderness he displayed at home
was never suspected, so the consuming earnestness, the absolute
fearlessness, whether of danger or of responsibility, the utter
disregard of man, and the unquestioning faith in the Almighty, which
made up the individuality which men called Stonewall Jackson, remained
hidden from all but one.
To his wife his inward graces idealised his outward seeming; but
others, noting his peculiarities, and deceived by his modesty, saw
little that was remarkable and much that was singular in the staid
professor. Few detected, beneath that quiet demeanour and absent
manner, the existence of energy incarnate and an iron will; and still
fewer beheld, in the plain figure of the Presbyterian deacon, the
potential leader of great armies, inspiring the devotion of his
soldiers, and riding in the forefront of victorious battle.
[1] Amongst these may be mentioned Grant, Sherman, and McClellan. Lee
himself, as an engineer, had but small acquaintance with regimental
life. The men who saved India for England in the Great mutiny were of
the same type.
[2] Cooke, p. 28.
[3] _Memoirs of Stonewall Jackson,_ p. 108.
[4] Marion Crawford.
[5] _Oliver Cromwell,_ by Frederic Harrison, p. 29.
Chapter IV
SECESSION. 1860–61
1861 Jackson spent ten years at Lexington, and he was just
five-and-thirty when he left it. For ten years he had seen no more of
military service than the drills of the cadet battalion. He had lost
all touch with the army. His name had been forgotten, except by his
comrades of the Mexican campaign, and he had hardly seen a regular
soldier since he resigned his commission. But, even from a military
point of view, those ten years had not been wasted. His mind had a
wider grasp, and his brain was more active. Striving to fit himself for
such duties as might devolve on him, should he be summoned to the
field, like all great men and all practical men he had gone to the best
masters. In the campaigns of Napoleon he had found instruction in the
highest branch of his profession, and had made his own the methods of
war which the greatest of modern soldiers both preached and practised.
Maturer years and the search for wisdom had steadied his restless
daring; and his devotion to duty, always remarkable, had become a
second nature. His health, under careful and self-imposed treatment,
had much improved, and the year 1861 found him in the prime of physical
and mental vigour. Already it had become apparent that his life at
Lexington was soon to end. The Damascus blade was not to rust upon the
shelf. During the winter of 1860–61 the probability of a conflict
between the free and slave-holding States, that is, between North and
South, had become almost a certainty. South Carolina, Mississippi,
Alabama, Florida, Georgia,
Louisiana, and Texas, had formally seceded from the Union; and
establishing a Provisional Government, with Jefferson Davis as
President, at Montgomery in Alabama, had proclaimed a new Republic,
under the title of the Confederate States of America. In order to
explain Jackson’s attitude at this momentous crisis, it will be
necessary to discuss the action of Virginia, and to investigate the
motives which led her to take the side she did.
Forces which it was impossible to curb, and which but few detected,
were at the root of the secession movement. The ostensible cause was
the future status of the negro.
Slavery was recognised in fifteen States of the Union. In the North it
had long been abolished, but this made no difference to its existence
in the South. The States which composed the Union were semi-independent
communities, with their own legislatures, their own magistracies, their
own militia, and the power of the purse. How far their sovereign rights
extended was a matter of contention; but, under the terms of the
Constitution, slavery was a domestic institution, which each individual
State was at liberty to retain or discard at will, and over which the
Federal Government had no control whatever. Congress would have been no
more justified in declaring that the slaves in Virginia were free men