gauntlets reached to the elbow; around his waist was tied a splendid yellow sash, and his spurs were of pure gold." 50 After this, we appreciate the biographer's assertion that Stuart was as fond of colors as a boy or girl, and elsewhere we read that he never moved without his gorgeous red battle-flag which often drew the fire of the enemy.51
As to the spurs, they were presented to the general by the ladies of Baltimore and he took great pride in them, signing himself sometimes in his private letters, K.G.S., Knight of the Golden Spurs.52
This last touch is perfectly characteristic and the Stuart of the pen is precisely the same as the Stuart of the sword. He could express himself as simply as Napoleon: "Tell General Lee that all is right. Jackson has not advanced, But usually he did not. Indeed, the severe taste of Lee recoiled from his subordinate's fashions of speech: " The general deals in the flowery style, as you will perceive, if you ever see his reports in detail." 54 But I love them, they ring and resound so with the temper of the man, gorgeous scraps of tawdry rhetoric, made charming by their riotous sincerity, as with Scott and Dumas. "Their brave men behaved with coolness and intrepidity in danger, unswerving resolution before difficulties, and stood unappalled before the rushing torrent of the Chickahominy, with the probability of an enemy at their heels armed with the fury of a tigress robbed of her whelps."
