mmander found his health improved
by his life in the open air. His wound had been painful. A finger was
broken, but the hand was saved, and some temporary inconvenience
alone resulted. As he claimed no furlough for himself, so he
permitted no absence from duty among his troops. "I can't be absent,"
he wrote to his wife, "as my attention is necessary in preparing my
troops for hard fighting, should it be required; and as my officers
and soldiers are not permitted to visit their wives and families, I
ought not to see mine. It might make the troops feel that they are
badly treated, and that I consult my own comfort, regardless of
theirs."

In September his wife joined him for a few days at Centreville, and
later came Dr. White, at his invitation, to preach to his command.
Beyond a few fruitless marches to support the cavalry on the
outposts, of active service there was none. But Jackson was not the
man to let the time pass uselessly. He had his whole brigade under
his hand, a force which wanted but one quality to make it an
instrument worthy of the hand that wielded it, and that quality was
discipline. Courage and enthusiasm it possessed in abundance; and
when both were untrained the Confederate was a more useful soldier
than the Northerner. In the South nearly every man was a hunter,
accustomed from boyhood to the use of firearms. Game was abundant,
and it was free to all. Sport in one form or another was the chief
recreation of the people, and their pastoral pursuits left them much
leisure for its indulgence. Every great plantation had its pack of
hounds, and fox-hunting, an heirloom from the English colonists,
still flourished. His stud was the pride of every Southern gentleman,
and the love of horse-flesh was inherent in the whole population. No
man walked when he could ride, and hundreds of fine horsemen, mounted
on steeds of famous lineage, recruited the Confederate squadrons.

But, despite their skill with the rifle, their hunter's craft, and
their dashing horsemanship, the first great battle had been hardly
won. The city-bred Northerners, unused to arms and uninured to
hardship, had fought with extraordinary determination; and the same
want of discipline that had driven them in rout to Washington had
dissolved the victorious Confederates into a tumultuous mob.* (*
Colonel Williams, of the 5th Virginia, writes that the Stonewall
Brigade was a notable exception to the general disintegration, and
that it was in goo