Death’s royal purple in the foeman’s lines.

So, from his narrow grave on the green hillside at Lexington, Jackson speaks with voice more powerful than if, passing peacefully away, in the fulness of years and honours, he had found a resting-place in some proud sepulchre, erected by a victorious and grateful commonwealth. And who is there who can refuse to listen? His creed may not be ours; but in whom shall we find a firmer faith, a mind more humble, a sincerity more absolute? He had his temptations like the rest of us. His passions were strong; his temper was hot; forgiveness never came easily to him, and he loved power. He dreaded strong liquor because he liked it; and if in his nature there were great capacities for good, there were none the less, had it been once perverted, great capacities for evil. Fearless and strong, self-dependent and ambitious, he had within him the making of a Napoleon, and yet his name is without spot or blemish. From his boyhood onward, until he died on the Rappahannock, he was the very model of a Christian gentleman:—

E’en as he trod that day to God, so walked he from his birth,
In simpleness, and gentleness, and honour, and clean mirth.

Paradox as it may sound, the great rebel was the most loyal of men. His devotion to Virginia was hardly surpassed by his devotion to his wife. And he made no secret of his absolute dependence on a higher power. Every action was a prayer, for every action was begun and ended in the name of the Almighty. Consciously and unconsciously, in deed as in word, in the quiet of his home and in the tumult of battle, he fastened to his soul those golden chains “that bind the whole round earth about the feet of God.” Nor was their burden heavy. “He was the happiest man,” says one of his friends, “I ever knew,” and he was wont to express his surprise that others were less happy than himself.

But there are few with Jackson’s power of concentration. He fought evil with the same untiring energy that he fought the North. His relations to his moral duties were governed by the same strong purpose, the same clear perception of the aim to be achieved, and of the means whereby it was to be achieved, as his manœuvres on the field of battle. He was always thorough. And it was because he was thorough—true, steadfast, and consistent, that he reached the heroic standard. His attainments were not varied. His interests, so far as his life’s work was concerned, were few and narrow. Beyond his religion and the army he seldom permitted his thoughts to stray. His acquaintance with art was small. He meddled little with politics. His scholarship was not profound, and he was neither sportsman nor naturalist. Compared with many of the prominent figures of history the range of his capacity was limited.

And yet Jackson’s success in his own sphere was phenomenal, while others, perhaps of more pronounced ability, seeking success in many different directions, have failed to find it in a single one. Even when we contrast his recorded words with the sayings of those whom the world calls great—statesmen, orators, authors—his inferiority is hardly apparent. He saw into the heart of things, both human and divine, far deeper than most men. He had an extraordinary facility for grasping the essential and discarding the extraneous. His language was simple and direct, without elegance or embellishment, and yet no one has excelled him in crystallising great principles in a single phrase. The few maxims which fell from his lips are almost a complete summary of the art of war. Neither Frederick, nor Wellington, nor Napoleon realised more deeply the simple truths which ever since men first took up arms have been the elements of success; and not Hampden himself beheld with clearer insight the duties and obligations which devolve on those who love their country well, but freedom more.

It is possible that the conflicts of the South are not yet ended. In America men pray for peace, but dark and mysterious forces, threatening the very foundations of civic liberty, are stirring even now beneath their feet. The War of Secession may be the precursor of a fiercer and a mightier struggle, and the volunteers of the Confederacy, enduring all things and sacrificing all things, the prototype and model of a new army, in which North and South shall march to battle side by side. Absit omen! But in whatever fashion his own countrymen may deal with the problems of the future, the story of Stonewall Jackson will tell them in what spirit they should be faced. Nor has that story a message for America alone. The hero who lies buried at Lexington, in the Valley of Virginia, belongs to a race that is not confined to a single continent; and to those who speak the same tongue, and in whose veins the same blood flows, his words come home like an echo of all that is noblest in their history: “What is life without honour? Degradation is worse than death. We must think of the living and of those who are to come after us, and see that by God’s blessing we transmit to them the freedom we have ourselves inherited.”

NOTE I

Mr. W. P. St. John, President of the Mercantile Bank of New York, relates the following incident:—A year or two ago he was in the Shenandoah Valley with General Thomas Jordan, C.S.A., and at the close of the day they found themselves at the foot of the mountains in a wild and lonely place; there was no village, and no house, save a rough shanty for the use of the “track-walker” on the railroad. It was not an attractive place for rest, yet here they were forced to pass the night, and to sit down to such supper as might be provided in so desolate a spot. The unprepossessing look of everything was completed when the host came in and took his seat at the head of the table. A bear out of the woods could hardly have been rougher, with his unshaven hair and unkempt beard. He answered to the type of border ruffian, and his appearance suggested the dark deeds that might be done here in secret, and hidden in the forest gloom. Imagine the astonishment of the travellers when this rough backwoodsman rapped on the table and bowed his head. And such a prayer! “Never,” says Mr. St. John, “did I hear a petition that more evidently came from the heart. It was so simple, so reverent, so tender, so full of humility and penitence, as well as of thankfulness. We sat in silence, and as soon as we recovered ourselves I whispered to General Jordan, ‘Who can he be?’ To which he answered, ‘I don’t know, but he must be one of Stonewall Jackson’s old soldiers.’ And he was. As we walked out in the open air, I accosted our new acquaintance, and after a few questions about the country, asked, ‘Were you in the war?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ he said with a smile, ‘I was out with Old Stonewall.’”—Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. xix, p. 871.

NOTE II
LIST OF KILLED AND WOUNDED (EXCLUDING PRISONERS) IN
GREAT BATTLES
(The victorious side is given first)