STONEWALL JACKSON.*
WHEN, about a year ago, Mr. Lowe was uttering the most eloquent of his many eloquent libels on government by the people,—when he was denouncing democracy, "that bare and level plain, where every ant's neat is a mountain and every thistle a forest tree,"—there must have risen in his mind, we are certain, amid the hushed admiration of friends and foes, reproachful memories. "Bare and level !" his heart must have said, "yet it was under a democracy that Athena produced /Eschylus and * Stonewall Jackton. A ktilitary Biography. By J. E. Cooke. New York : Appleton and Co. 1665.
Pericles, Phidias and Socrates, Plato and Demosthenes. Rome remained an insignificant Latian city Until she conciliated her masses, and then she conquered the world. But two short years ago the American Union triumphed in a struggle which dwarfed the wrestlings of European ambition, and gave proof of quali- ties and produced men of the first order. Both sides had been trained under a republican rule ; Lee and Jackson, not less than their antagonists, were the armed soldiers of democracy,' though they fought against that cause." No one, least of all those who throughout have looked on the Southern Rebellion as traitorous and ruinous, will desire to subtract anything from the magnificent soldiership of its chiefs or to deny them the poor merit of having fought well in a bad cause. As long as honour is given to prowess in war, the Union may be proud to own Stonewall Jackson as her child, though she suffered at his hands many a bitter blow. Of him, surely, and of those brave brothers in arms of his who fell in the bloody years from the fall of Sumter to the fall of Richmond, we may repeat words which an eloquent Frenchman has spoken of the Girondists :—" Ah ! la Republique, (fulls condamnerent it lea tuer, portera leur dealt it jamais !"
Stonewall Jackson's life, like that of most great soldiers, is unfit material for an interesting biography. Up to the hour when the fighting begins it is singularly uneventful, and then the smoke and din of battles hide the form and drown the voice of the man. Neither Dabney's Life nor the volume before us give a clearly cut outline of Jackson's character, except as a soldier, and the latter point is to the general reader somewhat obscurely brought out. Still, Mr. Cooke's book has agreeably surprised us by the absence mainly of certain defects which we were prepared to find in it. The work of a Southern soldier, it is remarkable for a fairness of dealing with the character of opponents and an avoidance of the " spread-eagle " style highly creditable to the good taste of the writer. Political discussions are altogether ex- cluded from his pages, and though he does not attempt to conceal his belief that the cause of the South was the cause of justice and independence, this belief does not materially bias his slight con- tribution to the history of the Civil War.
Jackson's character as a soldier was founded, before he had the opportunity of doing anything noticeable, upon the intense regard for discipline and concentration of all his energies upon his pro- fession which had distinguished him while professor at Lexington. Like Lee and most other Virginians who fought in the war, Jackson was averse to secession, but when the violence of South Carolina and the Gulf States precipitated the collision, and Virginia after a pause of four months took the fatal plunge into the whirling depths of blood and treason, Jackson and Lee, and all those who had been bred to hold the doctrine, so subversive of all national order, that their allegiance to their State was of higher obligation than their allegiance to the Union, drew the sword, "not for slavery, but for the old Sic Semper flag." It was unhappily for slavery as well, and Mr. Davis must often have given thanks for the fortunate doctrine that reinforced the wily champions of the Slave power with a host of honester and abler men.
Jackson's early appearances as a commander on the Confederate side were not remarkable, but he was performing a very useful
work—the work on which his fame was founded ; he was forming, out of material at first sight unpromising, the famous First Brigade of the Army of the Shenandoah. That army indeed contained many able officers, was commanded by Johnston, and possessed in Stuart a cavalry skirmisher not inferior to Murat ; but in all the highest qualities of a commander—in calmness, firmness, rigour of discipline, and power of exciting the ardour of his men—Jackson was unequalled.
It was at the battle of Bull Run that Jackson first gave clear proof of his fighting worth, and he could not have manifested it at a more important crisis. Had the South been defeated in that conflict, broken in spirit as they were by previous disasters, the North might have been spared four years of obstinate war. And that the South was saved from defeat was mainly due to Jackson. We transcribe as a fair specimen of Mr. Cooke's descriptive power his account of the charge from which the General derived his famous surname. At this point the Federals had nearly succeeded in driving back their foes, and taking possession of a plateau which would have given them the command of the field :—
" Stich was the condition of things when the glitter of bayonets caught the eyes of Bee, beyond the Henry-House hill, and a courier brought word that reinforcements were coming at last. Bee galloped in the direction of the fresh troops: they were the First Brigade, under Jackson. As he pressed on rapidly the disordered troops of Bee and Evans swept by towards the rear, but the First Brigade continued to advance. Ali at once Bee appeared, approaching at full gallop, and he and Jackson were soon face to face. The latter was cool and composed Bee, covered with dust and sweat with his drawn sword in his hand, his horse foaming. In the bitter despair of his heart he could only groan out, General, they are beating us back!' The face of Jackson betrayed no corresponding emotion. He had his 'war look' on, but that was never a look of excitement. His eye glittered, and in the cart tone. habitual with him, he said, coolly, Sir, we will give them the bayonet.' These words seemed to act upon Bee like the sound of a clarion. Her galloped back to his men and, pointing with his sword to Jackson, shouted, 'Look ! there is Jackson standing like a stone wall! Let us determine to die here or conquer!' His command was partially rallied: the detachment took their position on the right, and Jackson's line swept steadily on towards the plateau."
This movement turned the tide. The Federals from that day- forth were possessed with an almost superstitious belief in the invincibility of " Stonewall's " Brigade. The battle of Bull Ran was a disastrous rout of the North, and it is said that as Jackson- rode with Beauregard after the fight and gazed on the retreating masses, he asked passionately, "Give me ten thousand men, and I will be in Washington to-night !" It was the fiery Maharbal. at Cannm urging irresolute Hannibal, "Victor in Capitolio epula- beris !"
From that day forth Jackson's reputation was made, his influ- ence over his men secured, his confidence in himself strengthened. In the fall of 1861 he was appointed to the command of the "Army of the Valley," as he loved to call it, and at once proposed to the authorities at Richmond the plan which till his death-hour- he adhered to as the best—" the Scipio-Africanus policy "of strik- ing a blow at the heart of the North. His scheme was not adopted, and his operations for some time were of a secondary character. All' through the spring of 1862 he continued perplexing the Northern chiefs with his rapid movements, dealing a blow where he was least expected, and then being found perhaps twenty miles away safe in entrenchments. In all his exploits he was well seconded by the most efficient cavalry officer next to Stuart in the Southern ranks, Turner Ashby, a soldier whom Mr. Cooke regards with an admiration second only to that which he dedicates to his great chief. Jackson lost Ashby in a trifling skirmish just before hin victory at Port Republic.
For nearly a year after these events the successes of this. "heaven-born warrior" continued. In the celebrated "Seven Days" his presence once more turned the tide of combat against. the North, and compelled McClellan's disastrous retreat across the Chickahominy, and his masterly exclusion of Banks' forces from. the great game that was played out before Richmond was the salvation, for a little while, of his State. Then came the struggle. with Pope, the retreat of the Federals across the Rappahannock, and the second conflict on the field of Bull Run. Jackson's plan. was at last accepted, and the State of Maryland was entered by the armies of the Confederacy. The cool reception which they met with from the inhabitants proves clearly how mad the same- conduct of Jackson, with a smaller force attempted earlier, as he had wished, would have been. In that case Antietam, or some con- flict answering to it, would have annihilated the Confederates. As it was, though it may be reckoned a victory for McClellan, it was not very decisive, although the numbers were in favour of the North. We must add that in his treatment of the battle of Antietam Mr. Cooke departs from his usual praiseworthy modera- tion. We have no reason to credit his assertion, which he bases upon no convincing arguments, that Lee fought on that day 90,000, Federals with 33,000 Confederates. The proportion that has generally been given is 75,000 to 90,000, and this agrees, unless on supposition of immense and unacknowledged losses, with the numbers of the invading force.
After the retreat of Lee and Jackson into Virginia there ensued a needed interval of repose. The supersession of McClellan was followed by the appointment of Burnside, who, though a brave soldier, soon showed his incapacity for high command by flinging a. noble army upon the almost impregnable heights of Fredericksburg,. behind which was posted the finest soldiers of the South. The career of Jackson was now approaching its close. The confident advance of Hooker—ably executed, if he had been opposed by mediocre opponents—upon Lee's position seriously endangered the safety of the latter. Jackson was entrusted with the dangerous office of surrounding the Federal right, and by a masterly march effected. his object. In the battle that ensued, named Chancellorsvillet from Hooker's head-quarters, the Federals were defeated, but Jackson fell, shot by an unhappy mistake by his own men. He lingered in great pain for a week, his last speeches were muttered orders to his troops, wanderings of the mind among familiar scenes, but at the end he grew calm, and with a deep longing for peace he expired with these words on his lips, "Let us crow over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees!"
He sought his last home in the place where in peace and war be had passed so many days. "Bury me in Lexington, in the valley of Virginia," was his request. There he lies,—in Lexington, where his happy professor's life had been spent, —in the valley of Virginia,—where he had won his early triumphs. The land is once more a part of the Union, and the cause he fought against, inherently just, was not to be conquered. Jackson was spared the bitterness of a ruin his proud spirit could have ill borne.
His military capacity stands above all criticism. It was not, it did not claim to be, of the highest order, but of its own order it was the highest. "Such an executive officer," said Lee, "the sun never shone upon. I had but to show him my design, and if it could be done it would be done." He was not a strategist on a great scale himself, did the office of the hand better than that of the head. He has been often compared to Cromwell and to Havelock. His intellect was as superior to that of the latter as it was inferior to the great Protector's, and indeed we think it was rather the accident of his narrow Calvinistic faith than any real likeness which suggested the comparison. He was more of the type of Wellington,—like him in his indefatigable industry, his -cool courage, his rigid discipline, his icy mien, and his all but ambroken successes.
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