any other than the ablest and most experienced
soldier the country can produce is but laying the foundation of
national disaster. Had the importance of a careful selection for the
higher commands been understood in the North as it was understood in
the South, Lee and Jackson would have been opposed by foes more
formidable than Pope and Burnside, or Banks and Fremont. The Federal
Administration, confident in the courage and intelligence of their
great armies, considered that any ordinary general, trained to
command, and supported by an efficient staff, should be able to win
victories. Mr. Davis, on the other hand, himself a soldier, who, as
United States Secretary of War, had enjoyed peculiar opportunities of
estimating the character of the officers of the old army, made no
such mistake. He was not always, indeed, either wise or consistent;
but, with few exceptions, his appointments were the best that could
be made, and he was ready to accept the advice, as regarded
selections for command, of his most experienced generals.

But however far-reaching may be the influence of a great leader, in
estimating his capacity the temper of the weapon that he wielded can
hardly be overlooked. In the first place, that temper, to a greater
or less degree, must have been of his own forging, it is part of his
fame. "No man," says Napier, "can be justly called a great captain
who does not know how to organise and form the character of an army,
as well as to lead it when formed." In the second place, to do much
with feeble means is greater than to do more with large resources.
Difficulties are inherent in all military operations, and not the
least may be the constitution of the army. Nor would the story of
Stonewall Jackson be more than half told without large reference to
those tried soldiers, subalterns and private soldiers as they were,
whom he looked upon as his comrades, whose patriotism and endurance
he extolled so highly, and whose devotion to himself, next to the
approval of his own conscience, was the reward that most he valued.

He is blind indeed who fails to recognise the unselfish patriotism
displayed by the citizen-soldiers of America, the stern resolution
with which the war was waged; the tenacity of the Northerner,
ill-commanded and constantly defeated, fighting in a most difficult
country and foiled on every line of invasion; the tenacity of the
Southerner, confronting enormous odds, ill-fed, ill-armed, and
ill-provided,