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There was probably no more ambitious man in the Southern Confederacy than “
Stonewall”
Jackson.
Tile vulgar mind thinks that it easily discovers those who are the ambitious men in a community.
It readily designates as such those who aspire to office and public positions, who seek sensations, court notoriety in newspapers, and hold up their hands for the applause of the multitude.
But ambition, in its true and noble sense, is very different from these coarse bids for popular favour.
There is a class of apparently quiet minds which, choosing seclusion and mystery, and wearing an air of absence, or even misanthropy, moving in their daily walks with an appearance of profound unconcern, are yet living for history, and are daily and nightly consumed with the fires of ambition.
It is this sort of ambition which cherishes and attempts ideals; which is founded on a deep and unconquerable self-esteem; and which is often haughtily and even grimly silent, from a consciousness of its own powers, or an ever present belief in its destiny.
Of such an order of ambition those who knew
Gen. Jackson best declare that he was singularly possessed.
He believed in his destiny, whatever religious name he chose to attach to that transcendental and ravishing sentiment; he was fond of repeating to his intimate friends that “mystery was the secret of success;” and because he went about his work with a silent and stern manner, that was no proof of the opinion of the populace, that he was simply a machine of conscientious motives, with no sentiment in his composition but that of duty.
It is not unfrequently the experience of truly great men, that they have to live through a period of utter misapprehension of their worth, and often of intense ridicule.
Such was the painful experience of
Gen. Jackson.
At the
Virginia Military School at
Lexington, where he was a professor before the war, he was thought to be stupid and harmless, and he was often the butt of the academic wit of that institution.
Col. Gillem, who taught tactics there, was taken to be the military genius of the place, and afterwards gave evidence of the correctness of this appreciation by actually losing, during the war, in the mountains of
Northwestern Virginia the only regiment that he was ever trusted to command.
At the
battle of Manassas, despite the critical and splendid service which
Jackson did there (for he stayed the retreat in the rear of the
Robinson House, and in the subsequent charge pierced the enemy's centre), his stiff and odd figure drew upon him the squibs of all the newspaper correspondents on the field.
His habit of twisting his head, and interpolating “Sir” in all his remarks was humorously described in the Charleston
Mercury.
At a
