affirm that such slight success as I
had in command was due to these customs. Assuredly, a knowledge of
details will not make a great general; but there can be no greatness in
war without such knowledge, for genius is but a capacity to grasp and
apply details.

These observations are not for the "heaven-born," who from their closets
scan with eagle glance fields of battle, whose mighty pens slay their
thousands and their tens of thousands, and in whose "Serbonian"
inkstands "armies whole" disappear; but it is hoped that they may prove
useful to the young adopting the profession of arms, who may feel
assured that the details of the art of war afford "scope and verge" for
the employment of all their faculties. Conscientious study will not
perhaps make them great, but it will make them respectable; and when the
responsibility of command comes, they will not disgrace their flag,
injure their cause, nor murder their men.

CHAPTER V.

THE VALLEY CAMPAIGN.

At length the expected order to march came, and we moved south to
Gordonsville. In one of his letters to Madame du Deffand, Horace Walpole
writes of the English spring as "coming in with its accustomed
severity," and such was our experience of a Virginian spring; or rather,
it may be said that winter returned with renewed energy, and we had for
several days snow, sleet, rain, and all possible abominations in the way
of weather. Arrived at Gordonsville, whence the army had departed for
the Peninsula, we met orders to join Jackson in the Valley, and marched
thither by Swift Run "Gap"--the local name for mountain passes. Swift
Run, an affluent of the Rapidan, has its source in this gap. The orders
mentioned were the last received from General Joseph E. Johnston, from
whom subsequent events separated me until the close of the war; and
occasion is thus furnished for the expression of opinion of his
character and services.

In the full vigor of mature manhood, erect, alert, quick, and decisive of
speech, General Johnston was the beau ideal of a soldier. Without the least
proneness to blandishments, he gained and held the affection and confidence
of his men. Brave and impetuous in action, he had been often wounded, and
no officer of the general staff of the old United States army had seen so
much actual service with troops. During the Mexican war he was permitted to
take command of a voltigeur regiment, and rendered brilliant service. In
1854 he resigned from the eng