The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1891-11-12
STONEWALL JACKSON.
A NOrtherner's Estimate of His Char
acter and Career.

The midsummer Of this year witness
ed a scene in the mountains of Vir-
ginia that recalled the events of past
generation. The 2Ist of July was the
thirteth anniversary of Bull Run,
where the North and South met in the
first real battle of the war, for the en-
gagements in West Virginia, near the
Ohio, hardly arose to the dignity of
battles. But Bull Run was a conflict
OF armies, IN which both sides took
their first lessons 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 cour-
age as they saw his mistaken column
standing "like a stonewall," from
which he received the name "Stone-
WALL Jackson. This was the hero to
whom monument was now TO be I'M
yelled in Lexington, where he is buried
Of those who 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, and wept with overpowering
emotion at the grave of their beloved
commander.
The demonstration furnished an oc-
Casion for a Northerner to give his
opinion of this extraordinary man.
The years that have passed have re-
moved US SO far from the great tragedy
of the 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 history of
Stonewall Jackson without recognizing
in him all the qualities that 90 to
make popular hero. As a soldier,
some competent critics rank him as
the first that the war produced on
either side. Not that he was at the
head of the largest army, or undertook
the most extensive military operations,
but that with the means that he had
he accomplished more than any other
commander. He had made a study
OF the campaigns of Napoleon, and
saw that success lay not merely in
having "the strongest battalions," but
In secrecy of design and rapidity of
execution
In the latter he outdid even Napo-
leon himself, training his men to such
pitch of endurance that he could
crush them twenty five miles a day
over a broken country, across rivers
and over mountains, and fight battle
as the sun was going down. Nothing
IN war gave more decisive proof of
military genius than the campaign in
the Shenandoah Valley in the spring
OF IS6e-the only one which he con-
Quoted absolutely alone, with no in
reference from those above him
where he was pitted not against one
army, but four, under Banks, Fremont,
Shields and Milroy, advancing upon
him from different quarters, and out
maneuvered them all, attacking and
defeating each in turn till he drove
them, one after another, out of the
valley, when he gave them all the slip,
and crossing the Blue Ridge in one of
his rapid marches, suddenly appeared
on the flank of McClellan's army be-
lore Richmond. That decided the
fenlnsular campaign, when he turned
north, and by bold movement threw
himself between Pope and Washington,
and the second Bull Run proved far
more bloody than the first.
All this is matter of history, which
II Is not necessary to recall, nor to
following the tireless soldier to Har-
pers Ferry, to Antietam, to Fred
rIcksburg and Charlottesville, where
he fell at the very moment that the
great flank movement which he had
conceived and conducted had struck the
Union army with shock from which
1t reeled and could not recover, bu,
sought safety on the other side of the
Kappahannock, which it had crossed
only few days before in all the con-
fldence of victory. This is a record o.
continued success which it is hard ,c
hnd another example in our own his
tory, or, indeed, in any other.-Eyon
".SfonewaH Jackson" By Reu. Hery,
~. FieM, ID. d., tn Ha,pfr's Maya
ziHe fer NoUember.
SAVANNAH, GA. April % 1889.