Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War
his health, had induced his relatives to obtain the post for him.
Jackson himself seems to have been influenced by the hope that his
salary would help towards his education, and by the wish to become
independent of his uncle’s bounty. His new duties were uncongenial,
but, despite his youth, he faced his responsibilities with a
determination which men of maturer years might well have envied. In
everything
he was scrupulously exact. His accounts were accurately kept; he was
punctuality itself, and his patience was inexhaustible. For two years
he submitted cheerfully to the drudgery of his position,
re-establishing his health, but without advancing a single step towards
the goal of his ambition. But before he was nineteen his hopes were
unexpectedly realised.
1842 The Military Academy at West Point not only provided, at the
expense of the nation, a sound and liberal education, but offered an
opening to an honourable career. Nominations to cadetships were made by
the Secretary of War, on the recommendation of members of Congress, and
in 1842 a vacancy occurred which was to be filled by a youth from the
Congressional District in which Clarksburg was included. Jackson,
informed of the chance by a friendly blacksmith, eagerly embraced it,
and left no stone unturned to attain his object. Every possible
influence that could be brought to bear on the member for the district
was immediately enlisted. To those who objected that his education was
too imperfect to enable him even to enter the Academy, he replied that
he had the necessary application, that he hoped he had the capacity,
and that he was at least determined to try. His earnestness and courage
won upon all. His application was strongly backed by those who had
learned to value his integrity and exactness, and Mr. Hays, the member
for the district, wrote that he would do all in his power to secure the
appointment. No sooner had the letter been read than Jackson determined
to go at once to Washington, in order that he might be ready to proceed
to West Point without a moment’s delay. Packing a few clothes into a
pair of saddlebags, he mounted his horse, and accompanied by a servant,
who was to bring the animal home, rode off to catch the coach at
Clarksburg. It had already passed, but galloping on, he overtook it at
the next stage, and on his arrival at Washington, Mr. Hays at once
introduced him to the Secretary of War. On presenting him, he explained
the disadvantages of his education, but begged indulgence for him on
account of his pluck and determination. The Secretary plied him with
questions,
but Jackson was not to be diverted from his purpose; and so good was
the impression which he made that he then and there received his
warrant, accompanied by some excellent advice. “Sir,” said the
Secretary, “you have a good name. Go to West Point, and the first man
who insults you, knock him down, and have it charged to my account!”
Mr. Hays proposed that the new-fledged cadet should stay with him for a
few days in order to see the sights of Washington. But as the Academy
was already in session, Jackson, with a strong appreciation of the
value of time, begged to decline. He was content to ascend to the roof
of the Capitol, then still building, and look once on the magnificent
panorama of which it is the centre.
At his feet lay the city, with its busy streets and imposing edifices.
To the south ran the Potomac, bearing on its ample tide the snowy sails
of many merchantmen, and spanned by a bridge more than a mile in
length. Over against the Capitol, looking down on that wide-watered
shore, stood the white porch of Arlington, once the property of
Washington, and now the home of a young officer of the United States
army, Robert Edward Lee. Beyond Arlington lay Virginia, Jackson’s
native State, stretching back in leafy hills and verdant pastures, and
far and low upon the western horizon his own mountains loomed faintly
through the summer haze. It was a strange freak of fortune that placed
him at the very outset of his career within sight of the theatre of his
most famous victories. It was a still stranger caprice that was to make
the name of the simple country youth, ill-educated and penniless, as
terrible in Washington as the name of the Black Douglas was once in
Durham and Carlisle.
1842 It was in July 1842 that one of America’s greatest soldiers first
answered to his name on the parade-ground at West Point. Shy and
silent, clad in Virginia homespun, with the whole of his personal
effects carried in a pair of weather-stained saddle bags, the
impression that he made on his future comrades, as the Secretary of War
appears to have anticipated, was by no means favourable. The West Point
cadets were then, as now, remarkable
for their upright carriage, the neatness of their appointments, and
their soldierly bearing towards their officers and towards each other.
The grey coatee, decorated with bright buttons and broad gold lace, the
shako with tall plumes, the spotless white trousers, set off the trim
young figures to the best advantage; and the full-dress parade of the
cadet battalion, marked by discipline and precision in every movement,
is still one of the most attractive of military spectacles.
These natty young gentlemen were not slow to detect the superficial
deficiencies of the newcomer. A system of practical joking, carried to
extremes, had long been a feature of West Point life. Jackson, with the
rusticity of the backwoods apparent at every turn, promised the highest
sport. And here it may be written, once for all, that however nearly in
point of character the intended victim reached the heroic standard, his
outward graces were few. His features were well cut, his forehead high,
his mouth small and firm, and his complexion fresh. Yet the ensemble
was not striking, nor was it redeemed by grave eyes and a heavy jaw, a
strong but angular frame, a certain awkwardness of movement, and large
hands and feet. His would-be tormentors, however, soon found they had
mistaken their man. The homespun jacket covered a natural shrewdness
which had been sharpened by responsibility. The readiness of resource
which had characterised the whilom constable was more than a match for
their most ingenious schemes; and baffled by a temper which they were
powerless to disturb, their attempts at persecution, apparently more
productive of amusement to their victim than to themselves, were soon
abandoned.
Rough as was the life of the Virginia border, it had done something to
fit this unpromising recruit for the give and take of his new
existence. Culture might be lacking in the distant West, but the air
men breathed was at least the blessed breath of independence. Each was
what he made himself. A man’s standing depended on his success in life,
and success was within the reach of all. There, like his neighbours,
Jackson had learned to take his
own part; like them he acknowledged no superiority save that of actual
merit, and believing that the richest prize might be won by energy and
perseverance, without diffidence or misgiving he faced his future. He
knew nothing of the life of the great nation of which he was so
insignificant an atom, of the duties of the army, of the manners of its
officers. He knew only that even as regards education he had an uphill
task before him. He was indeed on the threshold of a new world, with
his own way to make, and apparently no single advantage in his favour.
But he came of a fighting race; he had his own inflexible resolution to
support him, and his determination expressed itself in his very
bearing. Four cadets, three of whom were afterwards Confederate
generals,[5] were standing together when he first entered the gates of
the Academy. “There was about him,” says one of them, “so sturdy an
expression of purpose that I remarked, ‘That fellow looks as if he had
come to stay.’”
Jackson’s educational deficiencies were more difficult of conquest than
the goodwill of his comrades. His want of previous training placed him
at a great disadvantage. He commenced his career amongst “the
Immortals” (the last section of the class), and it was only by the most
strenuous efforts that he maintained his place. His struggles at the
blackboard were often painful to witness. In the struggle to solve a
problem he invariably covered both his face and uniform with chalk, and
he perspired so freely, even in the coldest weather, that the cadets,
with boyish exaggeration, declared that whenever “the General,” as he
had at once been dubbed in honour of his namesake, the victor of New
Orleans, got a difficult proposition he was certain to flood the
classroom. It was all he could do to pass his first examination.[6]
“We were studying,” writes a classmate, “algebra and analytical
geometry that winter, and Jackson was very low in his class. Just
before the signal lights out he would pile up his grate with anthracite
coal, and lying prone before it on the floor, would work away at his
lessons by
the glare of the fire, which scorched his very brain, till a late hour
of the night. This evident determination to succeed not only aided his
own efforts directly, but impressed his instructors in his favour. If
he could not master the portion of the text-book assigned for the day,
he would not pass it over, but continued to work at it till he
understood it. Thus it often happened that when he was called out to
repeat his task, he had to reply that he had not yet reached the lesson
of the day, but was employed upon the previous one. There was then no
alternative but to mark him as unprepared, a proceeding which did not
in the least affect his resolution.”
Despite all drawbacks, his four years at the Academy were years of
steady progress. “The Immortals” were soon left far behind. At the end
of the first twelve months he stood fifty-first in a class of
seventy-two, but when he entered the first class, and commenced the
study of logic, that bugbear to the majority, he shot from near the
foot of the class to the top. In the final examination he came out
seventeenth, notwithstanding that the less successful years were taken
into account, and it was a frequent remark amongst his brother cadets
that if the course had been a year longer he would have come out first.
His own satisfaction was complete. Not only was his perseverance
rewarded by a place sufficiently high to give him a commission in the
artillery, but his cravings for knowledge had been fully gratified.
West Point was much more than a military school. It was a university,
and a university under the very strictest discipline, where the science
of the soldier formed only a portion of the course. Subjects which are
now considered essential to a military education were not taught at
all. The art of war gave place to ethics and engineering; and
mathematics and chemistry were considered of far more importance than
topography and fortification. Yet with French, history, and drawing, it
will be admitted that the course was sufficiently comprehensive. No
cadet was permitted to graduate unless he had reached a high standard
of proficiency. Failures were numerous. In the four years the classes
grew gradually
smaller, and the survival of the fittest was a principle of
administration which was rigidly observed.
The fact, then, that a man had passed the final examination at West
Point was a sufficient certificate that he had received a thorough
education, that his mental faculties had been strengthened by four
years of hard work, and that he was well equipped to take his place
amongst his fellow men. And it was more than this. Four years of the
strictest discipline, for the cadets were allowed only one vacation
during their whole course, were sufficient to break in even the most