Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 19.djvu/317

 General Thomas J. Jackson 311

attack Burnside. He intended first to push forward his artillery, and after that to let them go to the rear and the infantry to charge. What we found out afterwards showed that if the attack had been made by Jackson as he proposed the Federal army would have been drowned or surrendered.

" Another evidence of his apparently intuitive knowledge of what was going on in the enemy's ranks was at Malvern Hill. Late in the night of the last day's fight I found him asleep by the side of a tree and his faithful servant Jim making some coffee for him to be ready when he awoke. While I was there several general officers came up and said that their commands were mobilized, and that if McClellan made an attack in the morning they would have no organized force with which to resist him. It was proposed presently to wake General Jackson up, and some one made the attempt, but when he went to sleep he was the most difficult man to arouse I ever saw. I have seen his servant pull his boots off and remove his clothes without waking him up, and so here at Malvern Hill on this night it was almost impossible to arouse him. At last some one got him up into a sitting posture and held him there, and another one yelled into his ear something about the condition of our army, its inability to resist attack next morning, etc. He answered : ' Please let me sleep ; there will be no enemy there in the morning,' and so it turned out.

" This faculty of knowing what they were doing was a great point with Jackson. I remember at Chantilly, after the Second Manassas, a battle was fought in a torrent of rain, that an aide-de-camp came up and said to General Jackson: ' General A. P. Hill asks permission to retire; his ammunition is wet.' "

" ' Give my compliments to General Hill,' said Jackson, * and tell him the Yankee ammunition is as wet as his stay where he is.'

" Not only this, but he estimated the character of the commander opposing him. I remember the night before the battle of Cedar Run I asked him if it was probable that we would fight the next day. He answered me: ' Banks is in front of me, and he is always ready to fight,' and then he laughed and said, ' and he generally gets whipped. ' "

"By the way, Doctor," said the reporter, "did he have much sense of humor? Was he fond of joking."

'* He was a difficult man to joke with," replied the narrator, "and it was not a safe thing always to try it, but occasionally when he did see a joke he would laugh very heartily about it. When he did