Year: 1879

FROM THE LIFE OF sroNEwALL JACKSON

 There is a lost leaf or unwritten page of the life of Stonewall Jackson which 1t is the purpose of this paper to sup ply.

 The |" old Jackson house and mills, '' situated on the west fork of the Monongahela river, four miles north of Weston, where Stonewall Jack son lived and worked, and then so lit tie known to the outside world, have, by association with his name, become historic.

 Cummins E. Jackson, the uncle of Stonewall, and owner of the houses, mills and adjoining farm, took him af- ter the death of his father, Jonathan Jackson, when about twelve years of age, to live with him, who taught him to work in the mills and on the farm.

 Thomas Jonathan Jackson, titled in the conflict of arms '' StonewalI Jack son, who was we'll known to the writer. was youth of exemplary habits, of a melancholy temperament, of indomi- table will and undoubted courage. He possessed an eminent degree of talent for mathematics, and was unwilling while at school to acknowledge his in capacity, '' give him time" to solve any proposition.

 He was by no means what is nova days termed brilliant, but was one of those untiring, plain, matter-of- fact persons who would never give up when he was engaged in an undertaking until he accomplished his object. He learned slowly, but when he got learning in his head he never forgot it. He was not quick to decide, except when excited, and then when he made up his mind to do thing he did it on short notice and in quick time. As an evidence of his most extraordinary decision of purpose, a MT. Mills taught school in the neigh borhood. He was pupil, and while on the way to the school an overgrown rustic behaved rudely toward two of the school girls. He was fired at his cowardly conduct, and told him he must apologize to them at once, or he would thrash him. The big rustic, supposing he was an over-match for him, declined to do so whereupon he pitched into him and gave him severe pounding.

 When the vacancy occurred in the cadetship to West Point from this Cor gressional district, by the failure of the appointee to report himself at the acad- emy, he decided to try for the place, and left here near sundown on horse back, three hundred miles from Wash ington, poorly clad and i'll qualified, to see Judge Spencer, the Secretary of War, and ask him for the position. Ar rived in Washington, he went straight way to the War Department, and the barley which took place between the Secretary and him, said an eyewitness, ' was gruf and heroic" Young Jack son had sand in the craw-some of the grit of '' Old Hickory and would neither be bluffed nor driven from his purpose. The Secretary was much ag grieved about that time on account of the execution of his son S on the high seas by order of Commodore McKen- zie, and consequently was not much in giving humor. He claimed that the appointment should be given to the son of some soldier or seaman who had lost his life in the service of his country. Young Jackson was an orphan and descendant of the early settlers and Indian fighters of Northwest Virginia, and consequently had but little diff culty in overcoming his objections to his appointment.

 The Secretary of War, in giving him the place, said: Sir, you have good name. Go to West Point, and the first one who insults you knock him down and have 1t charged to my account p He obeyed orders, and although green, raw and seedy, and good subject for the cadets to put through ' he decided to go through himself, or die in the effort.

 As is usual, the boys soon began to lay their plans to introduce him into what was then known as the mysteries of a West Pointer, and so unbearable did their conduct become that he was forced, out of self-respect, to give the officer charged with the performance of that duty a severe bruising. The result was he was brought to trial, and only saved himself from expulsion by plead ing the order of the Secretary of War.

 He was one of the hardest students ever at West Point, and for the first two years studied as much as sixteen hours out of the twenty-four. He made it a rule to sit with his back to the door, with his book before him, and to speak to no one who entered his room during study. At the end of the first two years 1t was thought he would not be able to go through. and some of the professors advised him to resign. His pride was touched, and he indignantly replied he would not do so, but would go through or die.'' About the middle of the third year, to use his own words, the