Robert Lewis Dabney, Life and Commands of Lieutenand- General Thomas J. Jackson

The world has learned to consider Jackson as the hero of the Virginia of 1861. The Commonwealth is proud to accept him as her representative man, and the attitude which he held was the true type of hers; as he stood conscientious, cautious, but fearless, pure and unselfish in motive, elevated in principle, with an eye raised in religious faith to the righteous heavens, awaiting the signal from the Divine approval for his resistance, profoundly sad for the mournful necessity, yet as sternly resolved to defend the right. In all classic and sacred story, there is no spectacle more affecting and sublime than that presented by this Christian man, and his Christian people, in this emergency. They did not share the delusion, cherished by many of the immediate Secessionists, that the North would be restrained from striking; but they knew the history of passion and fanaticism enough to expect a fearful war. They saw the mighty beast gathering his forces for the bound upon his prey, yet they calmly stepped before his jaws. How grandly does the action of Virginia contrast with that of Maryland and Kentucky, which, professing attachment to the right, subsided into a pitiful “neutrality,” that was, in fact, slavish co-operation with their enemies; the one, on the plea that the military highway to the tyrants' capital lay through her heart; and the other, on the ground that one-third of her border was only separated by a great river from the assailants! The defection of Kentucky left Virginia exposed on three sides to her invaders, and one of these the sea, vexed with the countless keels of the enemy; while his mercenaries had stolen, and now held her greatest place of arms, Fortress Monroe, which commanded the approach to the wharves of her chief sea-port and her capital city. Her border lay under the muzzles of the cannon which