him, he would have sent out reconnaissances in all directions,
halting his troops until he learned the coast was clear; how he would
have dashed at the Junction by the shortest route; how he would have
forced his weary troops northward when the enemy's approach was
reported; how, had he reached Sudley Springs, he would have hugged
the shelter of the woods and let King's division pass unmolested;
and, finally, when Pope's columns converged on his position, have
fallen back on Thoroughfare or Aldie. Nor would he have been greatly
to blame. Unless gifted with that moral fortitude which Napoleon
ranks higher than genius or experience, no general would have
succeeded in carrying Lee's design to a successful issue. In his
unhesitating march to Manassas Junction, in his deliberate sojourn
for four-and-twenty hours astride his enemy's communications, in his
daring challenge to Pope's whole army at Groveton, Jackson displayed
the indomitable courage characteristic of the greatest soldiers.

As suggested in the first volume, it is too often overlooked, by
those who study the history of campaign, that war is the province of
uncertainty. The reader has the whole theatre of war displayed before
him. He notes the exact disposition of the opposing forces at each
hour of the campaign, and with this in his mind's eye he condemns or
approves the action of the commanders. In the action of the defeated
general he usually often sees much to blame; in the action of the
successful general but little to admire. But his judgment is not
based on a true foundation. He has ignored the fact that the
information at his disposal was not at the disposal of those he
criticises; and until he realises that both generals, to a greater or
less degree, must have been groping in the dark, he will neither make
just allowance for the errors of the one, nor appreciate the genius
of the other.

It is true that it is difficult in the extreme to ascertain how much
or how little those generals whose campaigns have become historical
knew of their enemy at any particular moment. For instance, in the
campaign before us, we are nowhere told whether Lee, when he sent
Jackson to Manassas Junction, was aware that a portion of McClellan's
army had been shipped to Alexandria in place of Aquia; or whether he
knew, on the second day of the battle of Manassas, that Pope had been
reinforced by two army corps from the Peninsula. He had certainly
captured Pope's dispatch book,