Their new commander was a sorry substitute for the brilliant figures he had superseded. The militia generals had surrounded themselves with a numerous staff, and on fine afternoons, it was said, the official display in Harper’s Ferry would have done no discredit to the Champs-Elysées. Jackson had but two assistants, who, like himself, still wore the plain blue uniform of the Military Institute. To eyes accustomed to the splendid trappings and prancing steeds of his predecessors there seemed an almost painful want of pomp and circumstance about the colonel of volunteers. There was not a particle of gold lace about him. He rode a horse as quiet as himself. His seat in the saddle was ungraceful. His well-worn cadet cap was always tilted over his eyes; he was sparing of speech; his voice was very quiet, and he seldom smiled. He made no orations, he held no reviews, and his orders were remarkable for their brevity. Even with his officers he had little intercourse. He confided his plans to no one, and not a single item of information, useful or otherwise, escaped his lips.
Some members of the Maryland Legislature, a body whom it was important to conciliate, visited Harper’s Ferry during his tenure of command. They were received with the utmost politeness, and in return plied the general with many questions. His answers were unsatisfactory, and at length one more bold than the rest asked him frankly how many men he had at his disposal. “Sir,” was the reply, “I should be glad if President Lincoln thought I had fifty thousand.” Nor was this reticence observed only towards those whose discretion he mistrusted. He was silent on principle. In the campaign of 1814, the distribution of the French troops at a most critical moment was made known to the allies by the capture of a courier carrying a letter from Napoleon to the Empress. There was little chance of a letter to Mrs. Jackson, who was now in North Carolina, falling into the hands of the Federals; but even in so small a matter Jackson was consistent.
“You say,” he wrote, “that your husband never writes you any news. I suppose you mean military news, for I have written you a great deal about your sposo and how much he loves you. What do you want with military news? Don’t you know that it is unmilitary and unlike an officer to write news respecting one’s post? You couldn’t wish your husband to do an unofficer-like thing, could you?”
And then, the claims of duty being thus clearly defined, he proceeds to describe the roses which climbed round the window of his temporary quarters, adding, with that lover-like devotion which every letter betrays, “but my sweet little sunny face is what I want to see most of all.”
Careful as he was to keep the enemy in the dark, he was exceedingly particular when he visited his distant posts on the Potomac that his presence should be unobserved. Had it become known to the Federal generals that the commander at Harper’s Ferry had reconnoitred a certain point of passage, a clue might have been given to his designs. The Confederate officers, therefore, in charge of these posts, were told that Colonel Jackson did not wish them to recognise him. He rode out accompanied by a single staff officer, and the men were seldom aware that the brigadier had been through their camps.
Never was a commander who fell so far short of the popular idea of a dashing leader. This quiet gentleman, who came and went unnoticed, who had nothing to say, and was so anxious to avoid observation, was a type of soldier unfamiliar to the volunteers. He was duty personified and nothing more.
But at the same time the troops instinctively felt that this absence of ostentation meant hard work. They began to realise the magnitude of the obligations they had assumed. Soldiering was evidently something more than a series of brilliant spectacles and social gatherings. Here was a man in earnest, who looked upon war as a serious business, who was completely oblivious to what people said or thought; and his example was not without effect. The conventions came to nothing; and when the companies were organised in battalions, and some of the deposed officers were reappointed to command, the men went willingly to work. Their previous knowledge, even of drill, was of the scantiest. Officers and men had to begin as recruits, and Jackson was not the man to cut short essential preliminaries. Seven hours’ drill daily was a heavy tax upon enthusiasm; but it was severely enforced, and the garrison of the frontier post soon learned the elements of manœuvre. Discipline was a lesson more difficult than drill. The military code, in all its rigour, could not be at once applied to a body of high-spirited and inexperienced civilians. Undue severity might have produced the very worst results. The observance, therefore, of those regulations which were not in themselves essential to efficiency or health was not insisted on. Lapses in military etiquette were suffered to pass unnoticed; no attempt was made to draw a hard and fast line between officers and men; and many things which in a regular army would be considered grossly irregular were tacitly permitted. Jackson was well aware that volunteers of the type he commanded needed most delicate and tactful handling. The chief use of minute regulations and exacting routine is the creation of the instinct of obedience. Time was wanting to instil such instinct into the Confederate troops; and the intelligence and patriotism of the men, largely of high class and good position, who filled the ranks, might be relied upon to prevent serious misconduct. Had they been burdened with the constant acknowledgment of superior authority which becomes a second nature to the regular soldier, disgust and discontent might have taken the place of high spirit and good-will. But at the same time wilful misbehaviour was severely checked. Neglect of duty and insubordination were crimes which Jackson never forgave, and deliberate disobedience was in his eyes as unmanly an offence as cowardice. He knew when to be firm as well as when to relax, and it was not only in the administration of discipline that he showed his tact. He was the most patient of instructors. So long as those under him were trying to do their best, no one could have been kinder or more forbearing; and he constantly urged his officers to come to his tent when they required explanation as to the details of their duty.
Besides discipline and instruction, Jackson had the entire administration of his command upon his hands. Ammunition was exceedingly scarce, and he had to provide for the manufacture of ball-cartridges. Transport there was none, but the great waggons of the Valley farmers supplied the deficiency. The equipment of the artillery left much to be desired, and ammunition carts (or caissons) were constructed by fixing roughly made chests on the running gear of waggons. The supply and medical services were non-existent, and everything had to be organised de novo. Thus the officer in command at Harper’s Ferry had his hands full; and in addition to his administrative labours there was the enemy to be watched, information to be obtained, and measures of defence to be considered. A glance at the [map] will show the responsibilities of Jackson’s position.
The Virginia of the Confederacy was cut in two by the Blue Ridge, a chain of mountains three hundred and thirty miles in length, which, rising in North Carolina, passes under different names through Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and Vermont, and sinks to the level on the Canadian frontier.
The Blue Ridge varies in height from 2,000 to 6,000 feet. Densely wooded, it is traversed in Virginia only by the Gaps, through which ran three railways and several roads. These Gaps were of great strategic importance, for if they were once secured, a Northern army, moving up the Valley of the Shenandoah, would find a covered line of approach towards the Virginia and Tennessee railway, which connected Richmond with the Mississippi. Nor was this the only advantage it would gain. From Lexington at its head, to Harper’s Ferry, where it strikes the Potomac, throughout its whole length of one hundred and forty miles, the Valley was rich in agricultural produce. Its average width, for it is bounded on the west by the eastern ranges of the Alleghenies, is not more than four-and-twenty miles; but there are few districts of the earth’s surface, of equal extent, more favoured by Nature or more highly cultivated. It was the granary of Virginia; and not Richmond only, but the frontier garrisons, depended largely for subsistence on the farms of the Shenandoah.