the
majority of these were captured by the Federal cavalry and were
unwounded. At most, then, when he gave the order to retreat, Garnett
had lost 200, or rather less than 20 per cent.

Such loss was heavy, but by no means excessive. A few months later
hardly a brigade in either army would have given way because every
fifth man had fallen. A year later and the Stonewall regiments would
have considered an action in which they lost 200 men as nothing more
than a skirmish.* (* On March 5, 1811, in the battle fought on the
arid ridges of Barossa, the numbers were almost identical with those
engaged at Kernstown. Out of 4000 British soldiers there fell in an
hour over 1200, and of 9000 French more than 2000 were killed or
wounded; and yet, although the victors were twenty-four hours under
arms without food, the issue was never doubtful.) The truth would
seem to be that the Valley soldiers were not yet blooded. In peace
the individual is everything; material prosperity, self-indulgence,
and the preservation of existence are the general aim. In war the
individual is nothing, and men learn the lesson of self-sacrifice.
But it is only gradually, however high the enthusiasm which inspires
the troops, that the ideas of peace become effaced, and they must be
seasoned soldiers who will endure, without flinching, the losses of
Waterloo or Gettysburg. Discipline, which means the effacement of the
individual, does more than break the soldier to unhesitating
obedience; it trains him to die for duty's sake, and even the
Stonewall Brigade, in the spring of 1862, was not yet thoroughly
disciplined. "The lack of competent and energetic officers," writes
Jackson's chief of the staff, "was at this time the bane of the
service. In many there was neither an intelligent comprehension of
their duties nor zeal in their performance. Appointed by the votes of
their neighbours and friends, they would neither exercise that
rigidity in governing, nor that detailed care in providing for the
wants of their men, which are necessary to keep soldiers efficient.
The duties of the drill and the sentry-post were often negligently
performed; and the most profuse waste of ammunition and other
military stores was permitted. It was seldom that these officers were
guilty of cowardice upon the field of battle, but they were often in
the wrong place, fighting as common soldiers when they should have
been directing others. Above all was their inefficiency marked in