His wife and child were recalled in season to be with him for two days immediately preceding his death. Although confident up to the dawn of his last day on earth, that God still had work for him to do, and would raise him up to do it, he received the news of his approaching dissolution with perfect calmness.
"He preferred the will of God to his own;" he "would be infinitely the gainer by the translation from earth to heaven." He gave his wife instructions as to his burial and her future home; smiled radiantly, in murmuring "Little darling! sweet one!" as the baby he had named for his mother was lifted for the father's last kiss.
"Jackson must recover," General Lee had exclaimed upon hearing of his condition. "God will not take him from us now that we need him so much. Say to him that he has lost his left arm, I my right!"
Men who had not blenched when brought face to face with death that menaced themselves, bowed to the earth, weeping like women, as mortal weakness stole upon the strong right arm of the Confederacy. Without the tent "the whole army was praying for him," while incoherent sentences of command and inarticulate murmurings fell from his lips—fainter with each utterance. The watchers thought speech and consciousness gone forever, when the voice that had pealed like the blast of Roland in charge and rally, sounded through the hushed chamber, sweet, distinct, and full of cheer, but in dreamy inflections:
"Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees!"
Forced march, and midnight raid, and mad rush of battle were over. Victorious Greatheart slept upon the field.[Back to Contents]
