Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War
careless and the most slovenly to neatness, obedience, and punctuality.
Such habits are not easily unlearned, and the West Point certificate
was thus a guarantee of qualities that are everywhere useful. It did
not necessarily follow that because a cadet won a commission he
remained a soldier. Many went to civil life, and the Academy was an
excellent school for men who intended to find a career as surveyors or
engineers. The great railway system of the United States was then in
its infancy; its development offered endless possibilities, and the
work of extending civilisation in a vast and rapidly improving country
had perhaps more attraction for the ambitious than the career of arms.
The training and discipline of West Point were not, then, concentrated
in one profession, but were disseminated throughout the States; and it
was with this purpose that the institution of the Academy had been
approved by Congress.
In the wars with England the militia of the different States had
furnished the means both of resistance and aggression, but their grave
shortcomings, owing principally to the lack of competent officers, had
been painfully conspicuous. After 1814, the principle that the militia
was the first line of defence was still adhered to, and the standing
army was merely maintained as a school for generals and a frontier
guard. It was expected, however, that in case of war the West Point
graduates would supply the national forces with a large number of
officers who, despite their civil avocations, would at least be
familiar with drill and discipline. This fact is to be borne in mind
in view of the Civil War. The demands of the enormous armies then put
into the field were utterly unprecedented, and the supply of West
Pointers was altogether inadequate to meet them; but the influence of
the Military Academy was conspicuous throughout. Not a few of the most
able generals were little more than boys; and yet, as a rule, they were
far superior to those who came from the militia or volunteers. Four
years of strict routine, of constant drill, and implicit subordination,
at the most impressionable period of life, proved a far better training
for command than the desultory and intermittent service of a citizen
army.
During his stay at West Point Jackson’s development was not all in one
direction. He gained in health and strength. When he joined he had not
yet attained his full height, which fell short of six feet by two
inches. The constant drilling developed his frame. He grew rapidly, and
soon acquired the erect bearing of the soldier; but notwithstanding the
incessant practice in riding, fencing and marching, his anatomical
peculiarities still asserted themselves. It was with great difficulty
that he mastered the elementary process of keeping step, and despite
his youthful proficiency as a jockey, the regulation seat of the
dragoon, to be acquired on the back of a rough cavalry trooper, was an
accomplishment which he never mastered. If it be added that his shyness
never thawed, that he was habitually silent, it is hardly surprising to
find that he had few intimates at the Academy. Caring nothing for the
opinion of others, and tolerant of association rather than seeking it,
his self-contained nature asked neither sympathy nor affection. His
studious habits never left him. His only recreation was a rapid walk in
the intervals of the classes. His whole thoughts and his whole energy
were centred on doing his duty, and passing into the army with all the
credit he could possibly attain. Although he was thoroughly happy at
West Point, life to him, even at that early age, was a serious
business, and most seriously he set about it.
Still, unsociable and irresponsive as he was, there were those in whose
company he found pleasure, cadets who had
studied subjects not included in the West Point course, and from whom
there was something to be learned. It was an unwritten law of the
Academy that those of the senior year should not make companions of
their juniors. But Jackson paid no heed to the traditionary code of
etiquette. His acquaintances were chosen regardless of standing, as
often from the class below him as his own; and in yet another fashion
his strength of character was displayed. Towards those who were guilty
of dishonourable conduct he was merciless almost to vindictiveness. He
had his own code of right and wrong, and from one who infringed it he
would accept neither apology nor excuse. His musket, which was always
scrupulously clean, was one day replaced by another in most slovenly
order. He called the attention of his captain to his loss, and
described the private mark by which it was to be identified. That
evening, at the inspection of arms, it was found in the hands of
another cadet, who, when taxed with his offence, endeavoured to shield
himself by falsehood. Jackson’s anger was unbounded, and for the moment
his habitual shyness completely disappeared. He declared that such a
creature should not continue a member of the Academy, and demanded that
he should be tried by court-martial and expelled. It was only by means
of the most persevering remonstrances on the part of his comrades and
his officers that he could be induced to waive his right of pressing
the charge. His regard for duty, too, was no less marked than his
respect for truth. During one half-year his room-mate was
orderly-sergeant of his company, and this good-natured if perfunctory
young gentleman often told Jackson that he need not attend the
_réveille_ roll-call, at which every cadet was supposed to answer to
his name. Not once, however, did he avail himself of the privilege.[7]
At the same time he was not altogether so uncompromising as at first
sight he appeared. At West Point, as in after years, those who saw him
interested or excited noticed that his smile was singularly sweet, and
the cadets knew that it revealed a warm heart within. Whenever, from
sickness or misfortune, a comrade stood in need of
sympathy, Jackson was the first to offer it, and he would devote
himself to his help with a tenderness so womanly that it sometimes
excited ridicule. Sensitive he was not, for of vanity he had not the
slightest taint; but of tact and sensibility he possessed more than his
share. If he was careless of what others thought of him, he thought
much of them. Though no one made more light of pain on his own account,
no one could have more carefully avoided giving pain to others, except
when duty demanded it; and one of his classmates[8] testifies that he
went through the trying ordeal of four years at West Point without ever
having a hard word or bad feeling from cadet or professor.
Nor did his comrades fail to remember that when he was unjustly blamed
he chose to bear the imputation silently rather than expose those who
were really at fault. And so, even in that lighthearted battalion, his
sterling worth compelled respect. All honoured his efforts and wished
him God-speed. “While there were many,” says Colonel Turnley, “who
seemed to surpass him in intellect, in geniality, and in
good-fellowship, there was no one of our class who more absolutely
possessed the respect and confidence of all; and in the end Old Jack,
as he was always called, with his desperate earnestness, his
unflinching straightforwardness, and his high sense of honour, came to
be regarded by his comrades with something very like affection.”
One peculiarity cannot be passed by.
When at study he always sat bolt upright at his table with his book
open before him, and when he was not using pencil and paper to solve a
problem, he would often keep his eyes fixed on the wall or ceiling in
the most profound abstraction. “No one I have ever known,” says a cadet
who shared his barrack-room, “could so perfectly withdraw his mind from
surrounding objects or influences, and so thoroughly involve his whole
being in the subject under consideration. His lessons were uppermost in
his mind, and to thoroughly understand them was always his
determined effort. To make the author’s knowledge his own was ever the
point at which he aimed. This intense application of mind was naturally
strengthened by constant exercise, and month by month, and year by
year, his faculties of perception developed rapidly, until he grasped
with unerring quickness the inceptive points of all ethical and
mathematical problems.”
This power of abstraction and of application is well worth noting, for
not only was it remarkable in a boy, but, as we shall see hereafter, it
had much to do with the making of the soldier.
At West Point Jackson was troubled with the return of the obscure
complaint which had already threatened him, and he there began that
rigid observance of the laws of health which afterwards developed to
almost an eccentricity. His peculiar attitude when studying was due to
the fear that if he bent over his work the compression of his internal
organs might increase their tendency to disease.
And not only did he lay down rules for his physical regimen. A book of
maxims which he drew up at West Point has been preserved, and we learn
that his scrupulous exactness, his punctilious courtesy, and his choice
of companions were the outcome of much deliberation.
Nothing in this curious volume occurs to show that his thoughts had yet
been turned to religion. It is as free from all reference to the
teachings of Christianity as the maxims of Marcus Aurelius.
Every line there written shows that at this period of Jackson’s life
devotion to duty was his guiding rule; and, notwithstanding his
remarkable freedom from egotism, the traces of an engrossing ambition
and of absolute self-dependence are everywhere apparent. Many of the
sentiments he would have repudiated in after-life as inconsistent with
humility; but there can be no question that it was a strong and
fearless hand that penned on a conspicuous page the sentence: “You can
be what you resolve to be.”
Jackson was already a man in years when he passed his final
examination, and here the record of his boyhood
may fitly close. He had made no particular mark at the Academy.
1846 His memory, in the minds of his comrades, was associated with his
gravity, his silence, his kind heart, and his awkward movements. No one
suspected him of nobler qualities than dogged perseverance and a strict
regard for truth. The officers and sergeants of the cadet battalion
were supplied by the cadets themselves; but Jackson was never promoted.
In the mimic warfare of the playground at Brienne Napoleon was master
of the revels. His capacity for command had already been detected; but
neither comrade nor teacher saw beneath the unpromising exterior of the
West Point student a trace of aught save what was commonplace.
And yet there is much in the boyhood of Stonewall Jackson that
resembles the boyhood of Napoleon, of all great soldiers the most
original. Both were affectionate. Napoleon lived on bread and water
that he might educate his brothers; Jackson saved his cadet’s pay to
give his sister a silk dress. Both were indefatigable students,
impressed with the conviction that the world was to be conquered by
force of intellect. Jackson, burning his lessons into his brain, is but
the counterpart of the young officer who lodged with a professor of
mathematics that he might attend his classes, and who would wait to
explain the lectures to those who had not clearly understood them. Both
were provincial, neither was prepossessing. If the West Point cadets
laughed at Jackson’s large hands and feet, was not Napoleon, with his
thin legs thrust into enormous boots, saluted by his friend’s children,
on his first appearance in uniform, with the nickname of _Le Chat
Botté_? It is hard to say which was the more laughable: the spare and