against which I have protested is legal, it is not for me to question the expediency of degrading one who has served laboriously from the commencement of the war on this frontier, and borne a prominent part in the only great event of that war, for the benefit of persons [Sidney Johnston and Lee] neither of whom has yet struck a blow for the Confederacy." 35 The spirit is wrong, not such as becomes a man ready to give more than his life, his own self-will, for a great cause.
The same spirit continues and intensifies to the very end. Davis may have provoked it. He did not create it. And who can wonder that it harassed him past bearing? No quotation of a line here and there can give the full effect of the wasp stings which Johnston's schoolboy petulance—I can call it nothing else—was constantly inflicting. "I request, therefore, to be relieved of a merely nominal geographical command."36 "Let me ask, for the sake of discipline, that you have this rule enforced. It will save much time and trouble and create the belief in the army that I am its commander."37 If the Department will give me timely notice when it intends to exercise my command, I shall be able to avoid such interference with its orders."38
Doubtless, also, Johnston's attitude reacted upon the officers about him. He was an outspoken man and those who loved him were not very likely to love the president. An exceedingly interesting letter of Mackall's, printed in the "Official Records," gives some insight into the
