soldier by profession, faint-hearted as he may be, marches
shoulder to shoulder with his comrades, and acquires a fictitious,
but not unuseful, courage from his contact with braver men.

It is true that the want of good boots told heavily on the
Confederates. A pair already half-worn, such as many of the men
started with, was hardly calculated to last out a march of several
hundred miles over rocky tracks, and fresh supplies were seldom
forthcoming. There was a dearth both of shoe-leather and
shoe-factories in the South; and if Mr. Davis, before the blockade
was established, had indented on the shoemakers of Europe, he would
have added very largely to the efficiency of his armies. A few
cargoes of good boots would have been more useful than a shipload of
rifled guns.

Nevertheless, the absentees from the ranks were not all footsore. The
vice of straggling was by no means confined to Jackson's command. It
was the curse of both armies, Federal and Confederate. The Official
Records, as well as the memoirs of participants, teem with references
to it. It was an evil which the severest punishments seemed incapable
of checking. It was in vain that it was denounced in orders, that the
men were appealed to, warned, and threatened. Nor were the
faint-hearted alone at fault. The day after Jackson's victory at
M'Dowell, Johnston, falling back before McClellan, addressed General
Lee as follows:--

"Stragglers cover the country, and Richmond is no doubt filled with
the absent without leave...The men are full of spirit when near the
enemy, but at other times to avoid restraint leave their regiments in
crowds."* (* O.R. volume 11 part 3 page 503.) A letter from a
divisional general followed:--

"It is with deep mortification that I report that several thousand
soldiers and many individuals with commissions have fled to Richmond
under pretext of sickness. They have even thrown away their arms that
their flight might not be impeded. Cannot these miserable wretches be
arrested and returned to their regiments, where they can have their
heads shaved and be drummed out of the service?"* (* Ibid page 506.)

Jackson, then, had to contend with difficulties which a general in
command of regular troops would not have been called on to provide
against; and in other respects also he suffered from the constitution
of his army. The one thing lacking in the Valley campaign was a
decisive victory over a considerable detachment of the Federal army