of what was to be done in the morning. Removing the cap from his face, he said: "They won't be there in the morning," nor were they.

One morning, while marching with his staff, he stopped at the door of a farm-house. A gentle-looking woman was in the porch, with a little child at her knee, of whom he requested a drink of water. She promptly handed him a stone jug of cool and fresh water, which he quaffed like a horse. One of his staff asked the good woman to give me a drink of that water, please.' She emptied the pitcher upon the ground, went into the house and brought out a white pitcher, from which she gave the captain a drink. "Why did you not give it from the other pitcher?" asked the officer. "Oh," she said, "No man's lips shall ever again drink

from that pitcher."

BLESSED THE CHILD.

Again, while marching on to some new victory, he halted by a farm-house, whence a young mother came out into the road, with her young child in her arms, and said: General, won't you bless my child?" He took the little infant in his arms, and reverently raising it, with uncovered head, prayed for God's blessing upon it.

In the battle of Kernstown he was worsted by General Shields (one of the noblest of the Federal commanders). Because of the Confederates' ammunition being all exhausted, General Dick Garnett withdrew his troops. Jackson arrested Garnett, one of the truest and highest gentlemen in our army, and held him in arrest until Garnett, by personal influence, procured a trial by court-martial. Jackson was the principal witness for the prosecution. The court acquitted Garnett, after hearing Jackson's testimony, and only permitted the defence to be spread upon the record on Garnett's demand that, after such unusual and conspicuous severity, it was his right.

Poor Garnett fell in front of his brigade in the great charge at Gettysburg. He was mourned throughout our army, for a braver and gentler gentleman never died in battle.

"I FEAR NO MAN.'

While a professor of the Virginia Military Institue, Jackson arrested and caused a distinguished cadet to be dismissed for an infraction of the regulations. That cadet was distinguished as a scholar

and soldier. He found himself after four years of study and schol-
arly achievements deprived of the diploma, which was the object of
his long endeavor; without it his livelihood was imperilled. He was
justly outraged by such harshness, and vowed he would castigate
Jackson, and prepared himself to execute that purpose.
He was a
powerful and daring young man. The friends of both were deeply
anxious-Jackson was urged to have him bound over to keep the
peace. This would involve his oath that he was in bodily fear of his
enemy. He replied: "I will not do it, for it would be false. I do
not fear him. I fear no man." Then the superintendent had to
take the oath as required by the law, and have the young man bound
over to peace.
When the war came on Jackson, upon his own pro-
motion to a corps, had this young fellow made brigadier, and he
became one of the most distinguished generals of the war, and is
known to-day as one of the ablest men of our State. Jackson knew
he had done his pupil a grievous wrong, and did his best to repair it.

It is a pity where there is so much to admire and wonder at that
Jackson's biographers should claim for him accomplishments he did
not possess. Some of them tell of his fine horsemanship.
He was
singularly awkward and uncomfortable to look at upon a horse. In
the riding school at West Point we used to watch him with anxiety
when his turn came to cut at the head or leap the bars. He had a
rough hand with the bridle, an ungainly seat, and when he would
cut at a head upon the ground, he seemed in imminent danger of
falling headlong from his horse. One biographer tells us "as proof
of his skill that no horse ever threw him." This proof would not
satisfy a fox-hunter or a cow-boy, or any other real horseman. He
could no more have become a horseman than he could have danced
the german.

About 1850 Jackson was a lieutenant of artillery stationed at Governor's Island, when he was invited to accept the chair of Mathematics in the Virginia Military Institute.

In those days the government would grant an officer leave of absence for one year to enable him to try such an office before resigning his commission.

So he came up to West Point to see McClellan and myself and other comrades before retiring from the army. He was more cordial and affectionate than was usual with him, for he was never demonstrative in his manners, and he was in good spirits, because of his promotion and the compliment paid him.

PECULIAR MALADY.

He informed us, however, of a peculiar malady which troubled him, and complained that one arm and one leg were heavier than the other, and would occasionally raise his arm straight up, as he said, to let the blood run back into his body, and so relieve the excessive weight.

I have heard that he often did this, when marching, and having become very religious, his men supposed he was praying. I never saw him any more, except at Manassas after the battle, when General Johnston and other officers were congratulating him upon his fine conduct in the battle. These peculiarities have often been regarded and cited as evidences of the great genius he possessed.

I have always heard it said that he was an advocate for raising the black flag, and showing no mercy to the enemy who were invading our country and destroying our homes. And it has often been said and written, that he urged General Lee to assault the enemy in the town of Fredericksburg by night, after their defeat, and while they were retreating over the river, and that General Lee refused to do so because of the peril to the people of the town. I have never heard of Jackson evincing any sympathy or gentleness, or merciful regard for the wounded enemies he must have seen, nor tender emotions of any sort.

Therefore, the delightful book lately published by his widow is a revelation and surprise. Nothing in all literature can equal the exquisite gentleness and sweetness this book gives us of the stern, stolid, impassive nature, who lavished such tenderness upon the object of his love. To her he unlocks a treasure of rich and pious and loving emotions, none of us, his most intimate friends, had ever before suspected to exist.

We are glad to know a new edition will soon appear, for every library is incomplete without his wife's biography of Stonewall Jackson.

DABNEY H. MAURY.

[From the New Orleans, La., Picayune, January 23, 1898.]

HON. THOMAS J. SEMMES.

An Evening with the Venerable Statesman and Jurist.

A Charming Retrospect of a Useful and Eventful Life.

[Perusal of this will justify its preservation in these pages.-ED.] To every one at times there comes a moment of retrospection when the mind, leaving the currents of every day life, turns back to the past in loving memory, and thoughts now gay and happy, anon sad and tearful, sweep over the heart chords, and the echoes awakened in some dim twilight hour and heard by only a privileged few, make oft-times an important chapter in history of which the great outside world would gladly catch the lingering refrain.

It was the privilege of the writer to share just such a moment as this a few evenings ago in the historic home of the distinguished advocate and jurist, Judge Thomas J. Semmes.

For over half a century a conspicuous figure in the United States, for over forty years a leader of the Louisiana bar, and during that most important epoch of the nineteenth century a part and parcel of that great historic movement which, seemingly ending in defeat in war, still lives as the cardinal principle upon which this American republic is founded, Mr. Semmes stands to-day one of the most important connecting links between the old South and the new, one of the three surviving members of that great Confederate Congress which stood for all that the South held most dear, a living witness of the dear dead days which are forever wreathed in ivy and immortelle in the hearts of our people.

It was one of those rare evenings on which the pencil of a poet or artist might love to dwell. We were seated at dinner in the beautiful old mansion on South Rampart street, which has been the scene of some of the most notable gatherings in the South. There were only five of us-Mr. Semmes, his amiable and accomplished wife, she who has stood by his side these many years, in clouds and sunshine, in triumph and defeat, fulfilling that beautiful picture of Tennyson's “Isabel”—“a queen of women, a most perfect wife" Father Alexander J. Semmes, who, as physician and surgeon, followed the fortunes of the 8th Louisiana Regiment from the hour that

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the bugle called "To arms, till Lee laid down the most spotless sword that was ever surrendered; then turning from the fire and smoke of battle, Dr. Semmes entered another army-that of the Catholic priesthood-there to wage an undying war while life lasted in defense of the gospel of Christ; a young girl who listened with wonderlit eyes to the stories told of a day of which the children of this generation can catch only the lingering light and shadows, and the humble writer of this sketch.

All around were memories of a beautiful past. The old mansion teems with legendary and historic relics, and suggestive pictures of the old, old life now passing away forever. In the library, filled with choicest thoughts of the master minds of every age, hangs the picture of Mrs. Semmes' old "mammy," a privileged character in the household, as she goes about still exerting that familiar maternal sway which, even in the after years of married life, tenderly bound the women of the South to their dear old " negro mammies." From room to room are tokens and souvenirs from the most distinguished men of the century; the cabinets are littered with autograph letters from men who gave the South a history and a name, and here and there are quaint souvenirs of travel in foreign lands—a statue from Rome, a piece of art from Florence, rare old pictures from the ancient masters and a trophy from the Holy Land. And over the whole house is that delightful atmosphere of culture and love of study so grateful to the student and historian. Indeed, the peculiar, oldtime charm about all is enough to evoke reminiscences of the past, when the evening shadows fall and the candles are lit, and everything around and about seems to cry out: "A home with such souvenirs is a home of memories, and a home with memories is a home with a history."

One turns from these pictures to the most conspicuous figures in the home itself Judge and Mrs. Semmes. Despite his three score years and ten, the venerable and distinguished advocate still proudly holds his own as one of the most eminent members of the Louisiana bar, and the fire of his genius burns as brightly to-day as in the days when he first stood in the courts of our State, pleading great causes, or later, when his voice was heard in the congress at Richmond, in those dark days of 1861-'65, faithfully legislating in behalf of his doomed but beloved Southland. As he sat there in the gathering evening talking of the past, and now and again turning with beautiful old-time courtesy to his wife, as he thought that she might relate some anecdote or occurrence better than he, the picture drawn of