“Last evening,” he wrote to his wife on Christmas Day, “I received a letter from Dr. Dabney, saying, ‘one of the highest gratifications both Mrs. Dabney and I could enjoy would be another visit from Mrs. Jackson,’ and he invites me to meet you there. He and Mrs. Dabney are very kind, but it appears to me that it is better for me to remain with my command so long as the war continues. . . . If all our troops, officers and men, were at their posts, we might, through God’s blessing, expect a more speedy termination of the war. The temporal affairs of some are so deranged as to make a strong plea for their returning home for a short time; but our God has greatly blessed me and mine during my absence, and whilst it would be a great comfort to see you and our darling little daughter, and others in whom I take a special interest, yet duty appears to require me to remain with my command. It is important that those at headquarters set an example by remaining at the post of duty.”
So business at headquarters went on in its accustomed course. There were inspections to be made, the deficiencies of equipment to be made good, correspondence to be conducted—and the control of 30,000 men demanded much office-work—the enemy to be watched, information to be sifted, topographical data to be collected, and the reports of the battles to be written. Every morning, as was his invariable habit during a campaign, the general had an interview with the chiefs of the commissariat, transport, ordnance, and medical departments, and he spent many hours in consultation with his topographical engineer. The great purpose for which Virginia stood in arms was ever present to his mind, and despite his reticence, his staff knew that he was occupied, day and night, with the problems that the future might unfold. Existence at headquarters to the young and high-spirited officers who formed the military family was not altogether lively. Outside there was abundance of gaiety. The Confederate army, even on those lonely hills, managed to extract enjoyment from its surroundings. The hospitality of the plantations was open to the officers, and wherever Stuart and his brigadiers pitched their tents, dances and music were the order of the day. Nor were the men behindhand. Even the heavy snow afforded them entertainment. Whenever a thaw took place they set themselves to making snowballs; and great battles, in which one division was arrayed against another, and which were carried through with the pomp and circumstance of war, colours flying, bugles sounding, and long lines charging elaborately planned intrenchments, were a constant source of amusement, except to unpopular officers. Theatrical and musical performances enlivened the tedium of the long evenings; and when, by the glare of the camp-fires, the band of the 5th Virginia broke into the rattling quick-step of “Dixie’s Land,” not the least stirring of national anthems, and the great concourse of grey-jackets took up the chorus, closing it with a yell
That shivered to the tingling stars,
the Confederate soldier would not have changed places with the President himself.
There was much social intercourse, too, between the different headquarters. General Lee was no unfrequent visitor to Moss Neck, and on Christmas Day Jackson’s aides-de-camp provided a sumptuous entertainment, at which turkeys and oysters figured, for the Commander-in-Chief and the senior generals. Stuart, too, often invaded the quarters of his old comrade, and Jackson looked forward to the merriment that was certain to result just as much as the youngest of his staff. “Stuart’s exuberant cheerfulness and humour,” says Dabney, “seemed to be the happy relief, as they were the opposites, to Jackson’s serious and diffident temper. While Stuart poured out his ‘quips and cranks,’ not seldom at Jackson’s expense, the latter sat by, sometimes unprepared with any repartee, sometimes blushing, but always enjoying the jest with a quiet and merry laugh. The ornaments on the wall of the general’s quarters gave Stuart many a topic of badinage. Affecting to believe that they were of General Jackson’s selection, he pointed now to the portrait of some famous race-horse, and now to the print of some celebrated rat-terrier, as queer revelations of his private tastes, indicating a great decline in his moral character, which would be a grief and disappointment to the pious old ladies of the South. Jackson, with a quiet smile, replied that perhaps he had had more to do with race-horses than his friends suspected. It was in the midst of such a scene as this that dinner was announced, and the two generals passed to the mess-table. It so happened that Jackson had just received, as a present from a patriotic lady, some butter, upon the adornment of which the fair donor had exhausted her housewife’s skill. The servants, in honour of General Stuart’s presence, had chosen this to grace the centre of the board. As his eye fell upon it, he paused, and with mock gravity pointed to it, saying, ‘There, gentlemen! If that is not the crowning evidence of our host’s sporting tastes. He even has his favourite game-cock stamped on his butter!’ The dinner, of course, began with great laughter, in which Jackson joined, with as much enjoyment as any.”
Visitors, too, from Europe, attracted by the fame of the army and its leaders, had made their way into the Confederate lines, and were received with all the hospitality that the camps afforded. An English officer has recorded his experiences at Moss Neck:—
“I brought from Nassau a box of goods (a present from England) for General Stonewall Jackson, and he asked me when I was at Richmond to come to his camp and see him. He left the city one morning about seven o’clock, and about ten landed at a station distant some eight or nine miles from Jackson’s (or, as his men called him, Old Jack’s) camp. A heavy fall of snow had covered the country for some time before to the depth of a foot, and formed a crust over the Virginian mud, which is quite as villainous as that of Balaclava. The day before had been mild and wet, and my journey was made in a drenching shower, which soon cleared away the white mantle of snow. You cannot imagine the slough of despond I had to pass through. Wet to the skin, I stumbled through mud, I waded through creeks, I passed through pine-woods, and at last got into camp about two o’clock. I then made my way to a small house occupied by the general as his headquarters. I wrote down my name, and gave it to the orderly, and I was immediately told to walk in.
“The general rose and greeted me warmly. I expected to see an old, untidy man, and was most agreeably surprised and pleased with his appearance. He is tall, handsome, and powerfully built, but thin. He has brown hair and a brown beard. His mouth expresses great determination. The lips are thin and compressed firmly together; his eyes are blue and dark, with keen and searching expression. I was told that his age was thirty-eight, and he looks forty. The general, who is indescribably simple and unaffected in all his ways, took off my wet overcoat with his own hands, made up the fire, brought wood for me to put my feet on to keep them warm while my boots were drying, and then began to ask me questions on various subjects. At the dinner hour we went out and joined the members of his staff. At this meal the general said grace in a fervent, quiet manner, which struck me very much. After dinner I returned to his room, and he again talked for a long time. The servant came in and took his mattress out of a cupboard and laid it on the floor.
“As I rose to retire, the general said, ‘Captain, there is plenty of room on my bed, I hope you will share it with me?’ I thanked him very much for his courtesy, but said ‘Good-night,’ and slept in a tent, sharing the blankets of one of his aides-de-camp. In the morning at breakfast-time I noticed that the general said grace before the meal with the same fervour I had remarked before. An hour or two afterwards it was time for me to return to the station; on this occasion, however, I had a horse, and I returned to the general’s headquarters to bid him adieu. His little room was vacant, so I slipped in and stood before the fire. I then noticed my greatcoat stretched before it on a chair. Shortly afterwards the general entered the room. He said: ‘Captain, I have been trying to dry your greatcoat, but I am afraid I have not succeeded very well.’ That little act illustrates the man’s character. With the care and responsibilities of a vast army on his shoulders he finds time to do little acts of kindness and thoughtfulness.”
With each of his staff officers he was on most friendly terms; and the visitors to his camp, such as the English officer quoted above, found him a most delightful host, discussing with the ease of an educated gentleman all manner of topics, and displaying not the slightest trace of that awkwardness and extreme diffidence which have been attributed to him. The range and accuracy of his information surprised them. “Of military history,” said another English soldier, “he knew more than any other man I met in America; and he was so far from displaying the somewhat grim characteristics that have been associated with his name, that one would have thought his tastes lay in the direction of art and literature.” “His chief delight,” wrote the Hon. Francis Lawley, who knew him well, “was in the cathedrals of England, notably in York Minster and Westminster Abbey. He was never tired of talking about them, or listening to details about the chapels and cloisters of Oxford.”[[6]]