y in advance of his letter of appointment. Jackson had
not been instructed that he was to hand over his command, and,
strictly conforming to the regulations, he respectfully declined to
vacate his post. Fortunately a communication soon came from General
Lee, commanding the Virginia troops, in which he referred to Johnston
as in command at Harper's Ferry. Jackson at once recognised this
letter as official evidence that he was superseded, and from that
time forth rendered his superior the most faithful and zealous
support. He seems at first to have expected that he would be sent to
North-west Virginia, and his one ambition at this time was to be
selected as the instrument of saving his native mountains to the
South. But the Confederate Government had other views. At the
beginning of June a more compact organisation was given to the
regiments at Harper's Ferry, and Jackson was assigned to the command
of the First Brigade of the Army of the Shenandoah.* (* The Virginia
troops were merged in the army of the Confederate States on June 8,
1861. The total strength was 40,000 men and 115 guns. O.R. volume 2
page 928.)

Recruited in the Valley of the Shenandoah and the western mountains,
the brigade consisted of the following regiments:--

The 2nd Virginia, Colonel Allen.
The 4th Virginia, Colonel Preston.
The 5th Virginia, Colonel Harper.
The 27th Virginia, Lieutenant-Colonel Echols.
The 33rd Virginia, Colonel Cummings.

A battery of artillery, raised in Rockbridge County, was attached to
the brigade. Commanded by the Reverend Dr. Pendleton, the rector of
Lexington, an old West Point graduate, who was afterwards
distinguished as Lee's chief of artillery, and recruited largely from
theological colleges, it soon became peculiarly efficient.* (* When
the battery arrived at Harper's Ferry, it was quartered in a church,
already occupied by a company called the Grayson Dare-devils, who,
wishing to show their hospitality, assigned the pulpit to Captain
Pendleton as an appropriate lodging. The four guns were at once
christened Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.)
%
No better material for soldiers ever existed than the men of the
Valley. Most of them were of Scotch-Irish descent, but from the more
northern counties came many of English blood, and from those in the
centre of Swiss and German. But whatever their origin, they were
thoroughly well qualified for their new trade. All classes mingled in
the ranks, and all ages; the heirs of t