ask myself whether, after all, Fortune deserved the full blame in the matter. You and I know scores of men who would have been rich and great and prosperous, if—if—if— And then a little reflection shows us that the if lies latent, or even patent, in the character or conduct of the man himself. It would be unjust and cruel to deny that many cross-accidents thwarted Johnston's career, that inevitable and undeserved misfortunes fell between him and glory. Yet a careful, thoughtful study of that career forces me to admit that the man was in some respects his own ill fortune and injured himself.
Take even the mere mechanical matter of wounds. Johnston may have got more than his share of blindly billeted projectiles. But every one agrees that his splendid recklessness took him often into unnecessary danger. One of his aides told Mrs. Chesnut that he had never seen a battle. "No man exposes himself more recklessly to danger than General Johnston, and no one strives harder to keep others out of it."19 Take also his trumpet words to a young soldier who had lost his horse. "To have a horse killed under one puts a tall feather in his cap. . . . Even at present prices I'd freely give a good horse to the same fate."20 Such adventurous chivalry in an officer of high rank is noble and lovable, but it is apt to mean ill luck in the matter of damages.
Some of Johnston's other qualities were less noble and, I think, bred ill luck with no adequate compensation. In the original cause of the quarrel with Davis,
