The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1891-12-09
ON STONEWALL JACKSON.
A NORTHERNER'S ESTIMATE OF
HIS CHARACTER AND CAREER.
Interesting Views by Rev. Henry NJ.
Field, ID. d., on the Confederate
Leader, Published in Harper"

Interesting Views by Rev. Henry NJ.
Field, ID. d., on the Confederate
Leader, Published in "Harper."
Rev. Henry NJ. Field, D. D., the we'll
known Northern divine, has an article in
Harper's Magazine on the life aud charac-
ter of General "Stonewall" Jackson.
The reverend writer says:
The midsummer Of this year (1S91)
witnessed scene in the mountains of
Virginia that recalled the events of a
past generation. The 21st of July was
the thirtieth anniversary of Bull Run,
where North and South met in the first
real battle of the war, for the engage
ments in West Virginia, near the Ohio,
hardly rose to the dignity of battles.
But Bull Run was conflict of armies,
in which both sides took their first les
sons in war, and out of which came at
least one great soldier, who stood so
firmly while the battle ragged around
him that others who were broken and
dismayed took courage as they saw his
unshaken column standing ''like a stone
wall, from which he received the name
of "Stonewall" jackson. This was the
hero to whom q monument was now to
be unveiled in Lexington, where he is
buried. OF those whose stood beside
him on that bloody day thirty years ago,
almost all had followed him to the grave;
but the survivors, the shattered wrecks
of war, came from far and near to do
honor to him who once led them to
battle, aud wept with overpowering
emotion at the grave of their believed
commander.
The demonstration furnishes an occa-
sion for Northerner to give his opinion
of this extraordinary man. The years
that have passed have removed us SO far
from the great tragedy of war, and from
the passions it aroused, that we can do
justice even to those who were in arms
against us; and no one can read the his
tory of Stonewall jackson without recog-
nizing in him all the qualities that go to
make a popular hero. As soldier,
some competent critics rank him rs the
first that the war produced on either
side. Not that he was at the head of the
largest army, or undertook the most ex-
tensIve military operations, but that
with the means that he had he accom-
plished more than any other commander.
He had made study of the can paigns of
Napoleon, and saw that success lay not
merely in having "the strongest battal-
ions," but in secrecy of design and of
rapidity of execution. In the latter he
outdid even Napoleon himself, training
his men to such pitch of endurance that
he could crush" them twenty-five miles
"a day over broken country, across rivers
and over mountains, and fight battle as
the sun was going down. Nothing in
the war gave more decisive proof
of military genius than the
campaign in the Shenandoah Valley
in the spring of 1862-the only one
which he cond ctcd absolutely alone,
him-where he was pitted not against
one army, but four (under Banks, FIRE.
mont, Shields and Milroy), advancing
upon him from different quarters, and
outmaneuvred them all, attacking and
defeating each in turn, till he drove
them, one after another, out of the val
ley, when he gave them all the slip, an
crossing the Blue Ridge in one of his
rapid marches, suddenly appeared on the
flank of Nc Clelau's army before Rich
mond. That decided the Peuinsular
campaign, whea he turned north, aud
by a bold movement threw himself be-
tween Pope and Washington, and the
second Bull Ran proved far more bloody
than the first. All this is matter of his
tory which it is not necessary to recall,
nor to follow the tireless soldier to Har-
per's Ferry, to Antietam, to Fredericks-
burg and Charlottesville, where he fell
at the very mo nent that the great flank
movement which he hal conceived AMI
conducted had struck the Union Army
with a shock from which it reeled and
could not recover, but sought safety on
the other side of the ppahannock,
which it had crossed only few days be-
fore in all the confidence of victory.
This is recorl of continued success of
which it is hard to find another ex-
ample in our own history, or, indeed, in
any other.