[55]
inflicted by the rout of the afternoon, had recoiled within his lines and was making temporary field works against the onset of the morrow.
That great genius read through the darkness the trepidation of Hooker and decided to attack under cover of darkness.
Trusting himself only, he ventured to find the weak joint in the enemy's armor.
If he had come back to us as he went, we would have been hurled against Hooker, and the Army of the Potomac would have ceased to exist as a fighting unit.
I recall the march of Jackson's Corps from Fredericksburg to Chancellorsville the day before that battle—it was full of glories.
Halting to rest along a narrow road, arms were stacked—in a line as crooked as the line of an old-fashioned Virginia fence.
Suddenly the sound of a great multitude who had raised their voices in accord came over the tips of the bayonets.
The very air of heaven seemed agitated—it was Nature's sympathy as in the total eclipse of the sun, the onrushing of the shadow has its herald on stronger air. The horse and his rider cross our vision.
The simple Presbyterian Elder, anointed of God, with clenched teeth, a very statue, passes to his transfiguration.
No artist could express on canvas the face of that man in moments of excitement.
I have been transported to the summit of action in battle by his presence.
The gaudium certaminis.
He was God's hermit.
It has been said of Adoniram Judson that his life was a perpetual incense to heaven.
His example was worth to humanity all the money ever spent in the mission field.
How shall I appraise the influence of our illustrious captains and the obedience of their ragged cohorts!
How shall I inventory their virtues!
The night before Chancellorsville my command laid close to the spot where the two foremost men of the army of Northern Virginia held high counsel over the situation.
There General Lee, pointing to the Catherine Furnace Road, traced the detour around Hooker, and the morrow witnessed the execution of a great conceit of strategy in lofty vein.
And now as he passes to his rest, his face to heaven, he talks of elemental nature.
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Richmond, VA. 1906.
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