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is perhaps not too much to say, that the common consensus of Christ- endom friend and foe and neutral ranks him as one of the greatest captains of the ages, and attributes to him more of the noblest virtues and powers, with less of the ordinary weakness and littleness, of humanity, than to any other representative man in history.
Indeed, if commissioned to select a man to represent the race, in a congress of universal being, whither would you turn to find a loftier representative than Robert Edward Lee ?
JACKSON.
What now of our marvellous Round-head ?
This certainly, that the world believes in his intense religion and his supreme genius for war, and receives every fresh revelation of him, with something of the profound and eager interest that attaches to the abnormal and the miraculous. In explaining the apparent presumption of this humble contribution, I cannot avoid the egotism of a personal explanation.
Probably no two general officers in the Confederate service knew more of the inner being of Stonewall Jackson and his characteristics as a soldier, than General D. H. Hill and General Ewell the former his brother-in-law, the latter his trusted lieutenant. It was my privi- lege to be honored with the personal friendship of both these officers General Hill early in the war, General Ewell later. Both talked freely with me of Jackson, and I eagerly absorbed from both all I could concerning him.
General Hill, during the winter of '6i-'2, frequently expressed to me his unbounded confidence in Jackson's unbounded genius, and predicted that, if the war should last six years, and Jackson live so long, he would be in supreme command.
Dear, queer, chivalric, lovable " Dick Ewell " first worshipped Stonewall Jackson, and then Stonewall Jackson's God. With his own lips he told me, what is related with slight variation in Mrs. Jackson's life of her husband, that the first religious impression of which he was ever conscious took the form of a desire to get hold of the wondrous power which inspired his great commander, after prayer. Elymas the sorcerer, Simon Magus, if you please but dear old Dick's simony led him up to " pure and undefiled religion." Ewell used to say the secret of Jackson's success as a soldier lay in his emphasis of the maxim, "Time is everything in war" more than numbers, preparation, armament more even than 'all these and all else.
