THERE was probably no more ambitious man in the Southern Confederacy than "Stonewall" Jackson. The vulgar -mind thinks that it easily discovers those who are the ambitious men in a community. It readily designates as such those who aspire to office and public positions, who seek sensations, court notoriety in newspapers, and hold up their hands for the applause of the multitude. But ambition, in its true and noble sense, is very different from these coarse bids for popular favour. There is a class of apparently quiet minds which, choosing seclusion and mystery, and wearing an air of absence, or even misanthropy, moving in their daily walks with an appearance of profound unconcern, are yet living for history, and are daily and nightly consumed with the fires of ambition. It is this sort of ambition which cherishes and attempts ideals ;; which is founded on a deep and unconquerable self-esteem; and which is often haughtily and even grimly silent, from a consciousness of its own powers, or an ever present belief in its destiny.

Of such an order of ambition those who knew Gen. Jackson best declare that he was singularly possessed. He believed in his destiny, whatever religious name he chose to attach to that transcendental and ravishing sentiment; he was fond of repeating to his intimate friends that mystery was the secret of success;" and because he went about his work with a silent and stern manner, that was no proof of the opinion of the populace, that he was simply a machine of conscientious motives, with no sentiment in his composition but that of duty.

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It is not unfrequently the experience of truly great men, that they have to live through a period of utter misapprehension of their worth, and often of intense ridicule. Such was the painful experience of Gen. Jackson. At the Virginia Military School at Lexington, where he was a professor before the war, he was thought to be stupid and harmless, and he was often the butt of the academic wit of that institution. Col. Gillem, who taught tactics there, was taken to be the military genius of the place, and afterwards gave evidence of the correctness of this appreciation by actually losing, during the war, in the mountains of Northwestern Virginia the only regiment that he was ever trusted to command. At the battle of Manassas, despite the critical and splendid service which Jackson did there (for he stayed the retreat in the rear of the Robinson House, and in the subsequent charge pierced the enemy's centre), his stiff and odd figure drew upon him the squibs of all the newspaper correspondents on the field. His habit of twisting his head, and interpolating "Sir" in all his remarks was humorously described in the Charleston Mercury. At a

later period of his military career, when he made his terrible wintry march in 1861-2, from Winchester to Bath and Romney, and became involved in differences with Gen. Loring, it was actually reported that he was insane. A colonel came to Richmond with the report that Jackson had gone mad; that his mania was that a familiar spirit had taken possession of a portion of his body; and that he was in the habit of walking by himself and holding audible-conversations with a mysterious being.

It was about this time that Gen. Jackson came under the fitful cloud of President Davis' displeasure; and he was so much affected by the course of the Richmond authorities towards him in his affair with Loring, that, at one time, he determined to resign. The extreme sensibility of his nature, and his ardent ambition, were unmasked in the letters he wrote his wife, alluding to the then probable close of his military career, and submitting to what he supposed "the will of God" in this abrupt termination of his hopes. But it was not decreed by Providence that the Confederate cause should then lose the services of Jackson, and its chief ornament be plucked from it, and its great pillar of strength cast down through a paltry official embroilment in Richmond. By the earnest persuasions of Governor Letcher and others, Gen. Jackson was induced to withdraw his letter of resignation; and that sword which might have been dropped in an obscure quarrel was yet to carve out the most brilliant name in the war.

The fame of Jackson was first secured, and permanently erected in the popular heart, by his splendid and ever-memorable campaign in the valley of Virginia, in the spring of 1862. In that campaign, as we have seen, in the period of three weeks, he fought four battles; recovered Winchester; captured four thousand prisoners; secured several million dollars' worth of stores; chased Banks' army out of Virginia and across the Potomac, and accomplished a list of deeds that threw the splendour of sunlight over the fortunes of the Confederacy, and broke, at the critical moment, the heaviest shadows of defeat and misfortune that had so far befallen them. In the Seven Days Battles the name of Jackson again rose like a star. And yet it was to gather new effulgence, when the names of Second Manassas and the Wilderness were to be inscribed, alike on the banners of the Confederacy and the escutcheon of his own fame.

Jackson's intense religious character has naturally come in for a large share of public admiration and curiosity. To his merits as a commander, he added the virtues of an active, humble, consistent Christian, restraining profanity in his camp, welcoming army colporteurs, distributing tracts, and anxious to have every regiment in his army supplied with a chaplain. Prayer-meetings and "revivals" were common occurrences in his camp, and in these he was quite as active and conspicuous as in the storm and action of battle. It was said that he treated the itinerant preachers and

"circuit-riders" who flocked to his camp with much more distinction than any other visitors; and the story is told how, on one occasion, when the horse driven by one of these itinerants balked at a hill, Jackson himself insisted upon leading and assisting the animal up the acclivity in the astonished sight of his whole army.

His nature was epicene. We but seldom see a combination of feminine tenderness with a really strong will; but when we do, we see masked iron in the man, and discover the rarest and loftiest type of greatness. Such a combination was most sincere and striking in Jackson. An authentic anecdote is told of him, illustrating his extreme tenderness to whatever was weak or helpless. Stopping at the house of a friend, one wintry night, he showed much concern for a little delicate girl of the family, and counselled them to see that her bed was comfortable. After the family had retired, Jackson was seen to leave his chamber and approach the bedside of the little girl, where for some moments he busied himself tucking the bedclothes around her, and making the little creature as snug as possible. The large, rough hand that did this gentle task, was the same that wielded the thunderbolt of battle, and that cleft like flaming lightning the hosts of the Wilderness.

He

Jackson's habits in the field were those of almost superhuman endurance. Neither heat nor cold appeared to make the slightest impression upon him. He cared nothing for good quarters and dainty fare. often slept on the ground, wrapped in his blanket. His vigilance was marvellous; he never seemed to sleep; he let nothing pass without his personal scrutiny. His active determination and grim energy in the field, were scarcely to be expected from one who, in preceding years, had been a quiet professor in a college of youths. As for the rapidity of his marches, that was something portentous.*

* An officer on the staff of Jackson, at the time he was ordered to the Shenandoah Valley, writes as follows, in a pleasant private letter, of his experiences of the campaign, and of the peculiarities of the commander:

"When we were ordered up the Valley with old Jackson, it was considered to be a source of congratulation to all for going into active service; but, believe me, I would have willingly gone back into winter-quarters again after a week's trial, for Jackson is the greatest marcher in the world. When we first moved up here, our orders were for a march to Charlestown; next day we moved back to Winchester; in a few days again back to Charlestown; and thence, from one place to another, until at last I began to imagine that we were commanded by some peripatetic philosophical madman, whose forte was pedestrianism. With little or no baggage, we are a roving, hungry, hardy lot of fellows. 'Stonewall' may be a very fine old gentleman, and an honest, good-tempered, Industrious man, but I should admire him much more in a state of rest than continually seeing him moving in front. And such a dry old stick, too! As for uniform, he has none-his wardrobe isn't worth a dollar; and his horse is quite in keeping, being a poor, lean animal, of little spirit or activity. And don't he keep his aides moving about! Thirty miles' ride at night through the mud is nothing of a job; and if they don't come up to time, I'd as soon face the devil, for Jackson takes no excuses when duty is on hand. He is solemn and thoughtful, speaks but little, and always in a

*

The London Times, a journal whose judgments of men were taken in the cotemporary world almost as the sentences of history, frequently compared Jackson to Napoleon. "He was," said this great organ of European opinion, "one of the most consummate Generals that this cen tury has produced. * That mixture of daring and judgment, which is the mark of 'Heaven-born' Generals distinguished him beyond any man of his time. Although the young Confederacy has been illus trated by a number of eminent soldiers, yet the applause and devotion of his countrymen, confirmed by the judgment of European nations, have given the first place to Jackson. The military feats he accomplished moved the minds of the people with astonishment, which it is only given to the highest genius to produce. The blows he struck at the enemy were as terrible and decisive as those of Bonaparte himself."

There can be no doubt in history of the military genius of Jackson. There is a certain ignorant idea of genius as a thoughtless and careless disposition of mind, which gets its inspirations without trouble, and never descends to actual labour. Such was not the genius of Jackson; and such is not true genius. He was an active, laborious thinker; he wrestled with great thoughts; he had his silent calculations; but having once apprehended the true thought, and got to a point in his meditations, he acted with a rapidity, a decision, and a confidence, that scorned hesitation, refused longer to think, and took the appearance of impetuous inspiration.

Danger, in a certain sense, intoxicated him. But it did not produce that intoxication which confuses the mind, or makes it giddy with a crowd of images. It was that sort of intoxication which strings the nerve, stimu lates the brain, concentrates the faculties, and gives a consciousness of power that is for the moment irresistible. In battle, he was not much in motion; but his eyes glowed; his face was blazoned with the fire of the conflict; his massive jaw stiffened; his voice rang out sharp and clear; every order and remark was as quick and pertinent as if it had been studied for hours. One could scarcely recognize in this figure of intense activity, all alive, with every faculty at play, the man who used to occupy himself with rambling soliloquies in the rear of his tent; who presented the appearance of an inanimate figure-head in his pew at the Presbyterian

calm, decided tone; and from what he says there is no appeal, for he seems to know every hole and corner of this valley as if he had made it, or, at least, as if it had been designed for his own use. He knows all the distances, all the roads, even the cow-paths through the woods, and goat-tracks along the hills. I have frequently seen him approach in the dead of night, and enter into conversa tions with sentinels, and ride off through the darkness. In my opinion, Jackson will assuredly make his mark in this war, for his untiring industry and eternal watchfulness must tell upon a numerous enemy unacquainted with the country, and incommoded by large baggage-trains."

church in Lexington; and who often got up out of his camp-bed at night to spend hours in silent prayer and meditation.

It may readily be imagined that the wonderful career of Jackson and his personal eccentricities drew upon him a crowd of apocryphal anecdotes in the newspapers. Some of them were very absurd. His person was as variously represented in newspaper paragraphs as if, instead of being familiar to thousands, he inhabited the dim outlines of another century. One journal described him as`an absurdly ugly man with red hair; another gave his portrait as that of an immense brain, and features on which nature had stamped the patent of nobility. One newspaper correspondent declared that he always wore the brim of his cap on the middle of his nose. Another declared that he was an execrable rider, and looked like a loose jumping-jack on horseback.

There is a popular disposition to discover something curious or grotesque in great men. But there was really but little of this sort to be discovered in Jackson, and scarcely anything that could be pointed out as objects of vulgar curiosity. It is true his figure was queer and clumsy; but the features of his face were moulded in forms of simple grandeur; and its expression was as unaffected as that of Lee himself. He was not an ugly man. The vulgar might call him such; and the newspaper pas sion for caricature did so represent him. Nor did he have in face or figure those marks which the silly admiration of woman expects to find in military heroes. He did not wear long, greasy hair falling over his shoulders; he did not stand in dramatic attitudes; he did not keep his eyes unnaturally stretched; he did not thrust out his chest, as if anxious to impose himself upon public attention. His features were singularly simple and noble. A broad forehead, rising prominently over his eyes, and retreating at that easy angle which gives a certain majesty to the face, covered a massive brain; his nostrils were unusually large; his jaw heavy and well-set; and, although his features were coarse, they were combined in that expression of dignity and power which, to the intelligent and appreciative, even among women, is the greatest charm of the masculine face.

The death of Jackson cast a shadow on the fortunes of the Confederacy, that reached to the catastrophe of the war. It was not only a loss to his country; it was a calamity to the world: a subtraction from the living generation of genius: the extinction of a great light in the temples of Christianity. The proposition was eagerly made in the South to erect to his memory a stately monument. The State of Virginia sent an artist to Europe to execute his statue. Thousands followed him to the grave, and consecrated it with tributes of affection and the testimonies of devotion. Who, then, regarding this fervour of admiration and gratitude, could have supposed that the Southern mind could ever