Tall, gaunt, awkward, grave, brief, and business-like in all he did,
Jackson passed for odd, "queer,"--insane almost, he was thought by
some,--rather than a man of uncommon reserve power.
It was only when on parade, or when teaching artillery practice, that he
brightened up; and then scarcely to lose his uncouth habit, but only to
show by the light in his eye, and his wrapt attention in his work,
where lay his happiest tendencies.
His history during the war is too well known to need to be more than
briefly referred to. He was made colonel of volunteers, and sent to
Harper's Ferry in May, 1861, and shortly after promoted to a brigade.
He accompanied Joe Johnston in his retreat down the valley. At Bull Run,
where his brigade was one of the earliest in the war to use the bayonet,
he earned his soubriquet of "Stonewall" at the lips of Gen. Bee.
But in the mouths of his soldiers his pet name was "Old Jack," and the
term was a talisman which never failed to inflame the heart of every man
who bore arms under his banner.
Jackson possessed that peculiar magnetism which stirs the blood of
soldiers to boiling-point.
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