Emerging from the woods
towards evening, he surprised and routed Howard's corps, and between
eight and nine o'clock rode forward with a small party beyond his own
lines to reconnoitre the enemy's position. As he turned to ride back,
his party was mistaken for Federal cavalrymen and a volley poured into
it by a Confederate outpost. Several of the party were killed, and
Jackson received three wounds. They were not in themselves fatal, but
pneumonia followed, and death came eight days later.
There was none to fill his place--it was as though Lee had lost his
right arm. The result of the war would have been in no way different had
he lived, but his death was an incalculable loss to the Confederacy. It
was Lee's opinion that he would have won the battle of Gettysburg had he
had Jackson with him, and this is more than probable, so evenly did
victory and defeat hang in the balance there. But, even then, the North
would have been far from conquered, and its superior resources and
larger armies must have won in the end. Perhaps, after all, Jackson's
death was, in a way, a blessing, since it shortened a struggle which, in
any event, could have had but one result.
Another heavy loss which the Confederacy suffered even earlier in the
war was that of Albert Sidney Johnston, killed at the battle of Shiloh.
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