ar
from high; and such as he had was obtained by hard, persistent work, and
not by apparent ability. He was known as a simple, honest, unaffected
fellow, rough, and the reverse of social; but he commanded his
companions sincere respect by his rugged honesty, the while his uncouth
bearing earned him many a jeer.

He was graduated in 1846, and went to Mexico as second lieutenant of the
First United-States Artillery. He was promoted to be first lieutenant
"for gallant and meritorious services at Vera Cruz." Twice mentioned
in Scott's reports, and repeatedly referred to by Worth and Pillow for
gallantry while with Magruder's battery, he emerged from that eventful
campaign with fair fame and abundant training.

We find him shortly afterwards professor at the Virginia Military
Institute of Lexington. Here he was known as a rigid Presbyterian, and
a "fatalist," if it be fatalism to believe that "what will be will
be,"--Jackson's constant motto.

Tall, gaunt, awkward, grave, brief, and business-like in all he did,
Jackson passed for odd, "queer,"--insane almost, he was thought by
some,--rather than a man of uncommon reserve power.

It was only when on parade, or when teaching artillery practice, that he
brightened up; and then scarcely to lose his uncouth habit, but only to
show by the light in his eye, and his wrapt attention in his work, where
lay his happiest tendencies.

His history during the war is too well known to need to be more than
briefly referred to. He was made colonel of volunteers, and sent to
Harper's Ferry in May, 1861, and shortly after promoted to a brigade.
He accompanied Joe Johnston in his retreat down the valley. At Bull Run,
where his brigade was one of the earliest in the war to use the bayonet,
he earned his soubriquet of "Stonewall" at the lips of Gen. Bee. But in
the mouths of his soldiers his pet name was "Old Jack," and the term was
a talisman which never failed to inflame the heart of every man who bore
arms under his banner.

Jackson possessed that peculiar magnetism which stirs the blood of
soldiers to boiling-point. Few leaders have ever equalled him in his
control of troops. His men had no questions to ask when "Old Jack" led
the way. They believed in him as did he in his star; and the impossible
only arrested the vigor of their onset, or put a term to their arduous
marches.

His campaign in the valley against Fremont and Shields requires no
praise. And his movement about McClellan's