"
It was a good name, as representing not only his qualities of physical
courage, but also his qualities of moral courage. There was something
rock-like and immovable about him, even in his everyday affairs, and so
"Stonewall" he remained.
In some respects Stonewall Jackson was the most remarkable man whom the
war made famous. A graduate of West Point, he had served through the
Mexican war, and then, finding the army not to his liking, had resigned
from the service to accept a professorship at the Virginia Military
Institute. He made few friends, for he was of a silent and reserved
disposition, and besides, he conducted a Sunday school for colored
children. It is a fact worth noting that neither of the two great
leaders of the Confederate armies believed in slavery, the one thing
which they were fighting to defend. So Jackson's neighbors merely
thought him queer, and left him to himself; certainly, none suspected
that he was a genius.
Yet a genius he was, and proved it. Enlisting as soon as the war began,
and distinguishing himself, as we have seen, by holding back the Union
charge at Bull Run, he was made a major-general after that battle, and
a year later probably saved Richmond from capture by preventing the
armies of Banks and McDowell from operating with McClellan, making one
of the most brilliant campaigns of the war, overwhelming both his
antagonists, and, leaving them stunned behind him, hastening to Richmond
to assist Lee, arriving just in time to turn the tide of battle at
Gaines Mills.
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