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

[35] the account. An examination of these records will show a steady progress; and, if the deficient preparation of his beginning be considered, there is evidence of a scholastic ability and acquirement very little below the highest. But scholastic ability is not the real test of a great mind. It also appears that he was usually least successful in a study when it was novel. In the science of military engineering, for instance, his first year's study placed him only 55th, but his last year 12th. He seems never to have become an adept in drawing; indeed nature had not gifted him with much of that manual dexterity, which is here more essential than even taste and correctness of eye. His greatest success was in ethics, where his grade was 5th-a correct prognostic of that transcendent ability in statesmanship and moral reasoning, which every great commander must possess. His teachers and comrades judged his mind sound and strong, but not quick. It was a frequent remark among the latter, that if the course were two years longer than it was, Jackson would assuredly graduate at the head of his class.

His manners, when he appeared at West Point, have been already described. When He returned upon furlough to his friends, they noted a great and progressive change in his person. The second year he grew, as it were by a leap, to the height of six feet. His bearing, though still deficient in ease, was punctiliously courteous and dignified. He was scrupulously neat in all his appointments, and, in his handsome cadet uniform, made a most soldierly appearance. At the military academy he was not morose, but reserved almost to shyness; fond of animated conversation and of the collision of intellect, when alone with one or two of his few intimates, but in a larger circle, a silent interested listener. The society there was usually stratified very distinctly,