ont, veiled the march of the Grand Army had
vanished from memory. The vast importance ascribed by the Emperor to
procuring early information of his enemy and hiding his own movements
had been overlooked; and it was left to an American soldier to revive
his methods.

The application of Jackson's second precept, "to hurl your own force
on the weakest part of the enemy's," was made possible by his
vigorous application of the first. The Federals, mystified and misled
by demonstrations of the cavalry, and unable to procure information,
never knew at what point they should concentrate, and support
invariably came too late. Jackson's tactical successes were achieved
over comparatively small forces. Except at Cross Keys, and there he
only intended to check Fremont for the moment, he never encountered
more than 10,000 men on any single field. No great victory, like
Austerlitz or Salamanca, was won over equal numbers. No
Chancellorsville, where a huge army was overthrown by one scarce half
the size, is reckoned amongst the triumphs of the Valley campaign.
But it is to be remembered that Jackson was always outnumbered, and
outnumbered heavily, on the theatre of war; and if he defeated his
enemies in detail, their overthrow was not less decisive than if it
had been brought about at one time and at one place. The fact that
they were unable to combine their superior numbers before the blow
fell is in itself the strongest testimony to his ability. "How
often," says Napier, "have we not heard the genius of Buonaparte
slighted, and his victories talked of as destitute of merit, because,
at the point of attack, he was superior in numbers to his enemies!
This very fact, which has been so often converted into a sort of
reproach, constitutes his greatest and truest praise. He so directed
his attack as at once to divide his enemy, and to fall with the mass
of his own forces upon a point where their division, or the
distribution of their army, left them unable to resist him. It is not
in man to defeat armies by the breath of his mouth; nor was
Buonaparte commissioned, like Gideon, to confound and destroy a host
with three hundred men. He knew that everything depended ultimately
upon physical superiority; and his genius was shown in this, that,
though outnumbered on the whole, he was always superior to his
enemies at the decisive point."*

(* The following table, of which the idea is borrowed from The
Principles of Strategy, by Captain Bige