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Frémont’s army, he retraced his steps for the purpose of co-operating with Ewell in an attack upon Banks in the Shenandoah Valley; when he made this junction he had 17,000 men. 68 An index of Jackson’s character is to be found in two of the books he had constantly with him, the Bible and Napoleon’s Maxims of War. 1 He interpreted the Bible literally and was guided by its precepts. Piety pervaded his being; religion was the affair of every moment; he prayed frequently for divine guidance in the most trivial affairs of life. But for his strategy he had recourse not to Joshua but to Napoleon. He read and re-read these Maxims so that he had for the theory of his profession, the best of masters. 2 The result of his study was seen in the Shenandoah campaign, which was truly Napoleonic. Celerity and secrecy were his watch-words. He sometimes marched with his whole army thirty miles in twenty-four hours and his infantry became known as “Jackson’s foot cavalry.” Himself apparently incapable of fatigue, he seemed to think that everybody should equal his endurance. “After a sleepless night, a long march, hard fighting, he would say to his officers, ‘We must push on—we must push on!’” Moreover, he converted his cavalry into mounted riflemen. “To mystify, mislead and surprise” was his precept; “to hurl overwhelming numbers at the point where the enemy least expects attack” was his practice. 3 69 On May 23, he swooped upon a detachment of Banks’s

Note 1. He carried these two, and one other, Webster’s Dictionary, in his haversack. [back]

Note 2. “Read and re-read,” said Napoleon, “the eighty-eight campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, Gustavus, Turenne, Eugéne and Frederick. Take them as your models, for it is the only means of becoming a great leader and of mastering the secrets of the art of war. Your intelligence, enlightened by such study, will then reject methods contrary to those adopted by these great men.”—Lieut. Col. Henderson, I, 504. [back]

Note 3. Lieut.-Col. Henderson, I, 308, 518, 519, 539. [back]

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