876 SOLDIERS AND SAILORS son's graphic description of the scene in a letter to his wife contains this passage : " I was much impressed with the thought that before me stood a man in the full vigor of health, who must in a few moments enter eternity. I sent up the petition that he might be saved." An officer upon duty, he saw the terrible spectacle with Cromwellian com posure, but the man behind the impassive mask was upon his knees in prayer for the human soul. Under date of January 21, i860, he writes : "Viewing things at Washington from human appearances^ we have great rea- son for alarm, but my trust is in God. I cannot think that He will permit the madness of men to interfere so materially with the Christian labors of this coun- try at home and abroad." She who, of all the world, knew him best records : " He never was a secessionist and maintained that it was better for the South to fight for her rights in the Union than out of it. . . , At this time (March 16, 1 861) he was strongly for the Union. At the same time, he was a firm State's rights man." At dawn, April 21st, he received an order from the Governor of Virginia to report to him immediately at Richmond, bringing the corps of cadets with him. At I o'clock P.M. he bade a final farewell to home and Lexington. On June 4th he writes incidentally to his " Little One " from Harper's Ferry : " The troops here have been divided into brigades, and the Virginia forces under General Johnston constitute the First Brigade, of which I am in command." This brigade was to share with the commanding officers the sobj'iquet by which he is known better than under his real name. In the battery attached to it were forty-nine graduates of colleges, besides nineteen divinity students. From the first victory of Manassas (June 21, 1861), when General Bee turned the tide of battle by shouting to the wavering lines, " Look at Jackson, standing like a stone wall ! Rally behind the Virginians ! " to the fatal blunder of May 2, 1863, "Stonewall" Jackson was the flashing star that guided the Confederate armies to glorious success. His faith in the God of armies was so blended with the conviction that he was a chosen instrument in the Omnipotent hand to re- pel invasion and secure an honorable peace for his beloved State, that his sub- lime confidence infused officers and men. A fragment of a camp ballad, popular in 1862, will give a faint idea of the enthusiasm excited by the " praying fighter : " Silence ! ground arms ! kneel all ! caps off Old Blue-light's going to pray. Strangle the fool that dares to scoff ! Attention ! 'tis his way ! Appealing from his native sod In forma pauperis to God ; " Lay bare Thine arm stretch forth Thy rod I Amen!" That's Stonewall's way.
