of the picket
should be called. When this officer came he recognised his general.
Jackson bound them both to secrecy, and praising the soldier for his
obedience, continued his ride. Some hours later his horse broke down.
Proceeding to a plantation near the road, he told his orderly to
request that a couple of horses might be supplied for an officer on
important duty. It was still dark, and the indignant proprietor, so
unceremoniously disturbed by two unknown soldiers, who declined to
give their names, refused all aid. After some parley Jackson and his
orderly, finding argument wasted, proceeded to the stables, selected
the two best horses, shifted the saddles, and left their own chargers
as a temporary exchange.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, after passing rapidly through
Richmond, he reached the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief. It
is unfortunate that no record of the meeting that took place has been
preserved. There were present, besides Lee and Jackson, the three
officers whose divisions were to be employed in the attack upon the
Federals, Longstreet, A.P. Hill, and D.H. Hill. The names of the two
former are associated with almost every Confederate victory won upon
the soil of Virginia. They were trusted by their great leader, and
they were idolised by their men. Like others, they made mistakes; the
one was sometimes slow, the other careless; neither gave the
slightest sign that they were capable of independent command, and
both were at times impatient of control. But, taking them all in all,
they were gallant soldiers, brave to a fault, vigorous in attack, and
undaunted by adverse fortune. Longstreet, sturdy and sedate, his "old
war-horse" as Lee affectionately called him, bore on his broad
shoulders the weight of twenty years' service in the old army. Hill's
slight figure and delicate features, instinct with life and energy,
were a marked contrast to the heavier frame and rugged lineaments of
his older colleague.

Already they were distinguished. In the hottest of the fight they had
won the respect that soldiers so readily accord to valour; yet it is
not on these stubborn fighters, not on their companion, less popular,
but hardly less capable, that the eye of imagination rests. Were some
great painter, gifted with the sense of historic fitness, to place on
his canvas the council in the Virginia homestead, two figures only
would occupy the foreground: the one weary with travel, white with
the dust of