Page:Confederate Portraits.djvu/76

44 sometimes been contended that Stuart should have had an even more responsible command than fell to him and that Lee should have retained him at the head of Jackson's corps after Jackson's death. Certainly Lee can have expressed no higher opinion of any one: "A more zealous, ardent, brave and devoted soldier than Stuart the Confederacy cannot have." 28 Johnston called him "calm, firm, acute, active, and enterprising, I know of no one more competent than he to estimate occurrences at their true value." 29 Longstreet, hitting Jackson as well as praising Stuart, said: "His death was possibly a greater loss to the Confederate army than that of the swift-moving General Stonewall Jackson." 30 Among foreign authorities Scheibert writes that "General von Schmidt, the regenerator of our [Prussian] cavalry tactics, has told me that Stuart was the model cavalry leader of this century and has questioned me very often about his mode of fighting." 31 And Captain Battine thinks that he should have had Jackson's place. 32 Finally, Alexander, sanest of Confederate writers, expresses the same view strongly and definitely: "I always thought it an injustice to Stuart and a loss to the army that he was not from that moment continued in command of Jackson's corps. He had won the right to it. I believe he had all of Jackson's genius and dash and originality, without that eccentricity of character which sometimes led to disappointment. Jackson's spirit and inspiration were uneven. Stuart, however, possessed the rare quality of being always equal to himself at his very best."