Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 19.djvu/368

 362 Southern Historical Society Papers.

by Johnston with the order for the latter' s removal. Stewart has since said: " I would cheerfully have suffered the loss of either of my own arms to have been able to retain Johnston in command." There could have been no purer ransom for his general's sentence than one of those stout arms. It was said by General Carter Stevenson, that he had never seen any troops in such fine discipline and condition as Johnston's army on the day he was removed from command. Con- stancy, staunchness, erectness, governed by a true discernment, are the attributes that conquer men and events. All these attributes were with Johnston's army the day he was removed. Ill they recked who changed that steadfast camp for the meteor flash of mutability. The authorities who made this change would rather have been dis- membered, limb from limb, than knowingly to have done aught inju- rious to their cause. The motives for their action could be honest only, and were urged by pressure from without, which I doubt not was sincere. But to Johnston, and as I believe to history, it was as if the soldier, in his tent, had been stabbed by his own guard.

With wounds to the body, Johnston was familiar; but a wounded spirit who can bear ? How did he receive this by far his severest wound ? What was the fashion of the metal which emerged from this searching crucible? Did the equanimity which stood by him in every other turn of fortune desert him now ? No, this did not desert him. His own unquailing spirit was faithful to him. If in the sol- dier's great campaign "no unproportionate thought took shape in act," so now, in his unwished furlough, none took shape in word. It is one of the prerogatives of greatness to know how not to be the sport of circumstance. Misfortune broke over him in vain. He broke misfortune by being unbroken by it. He was master of misfortune. The adversity, which does not shake the mind, itself is. shaken. Nothing could be finer than Johnston's demeanor in this, his unlocked for, and, to him, unjust overthrow. Nothing froward, nothing un- seemly shone in him or fell from him. He was one whom the exter- nal universe might break, but could not bend to an ignoble use. His tall branch stood, like the sap of Lebanon, rooted in the real. There stands to-day, and will to-morrow. The forest of appearance, that has no root, falls to swift decay around it.

I bestow no particular praise on one for following conviction, albeit without the place proportioned to desert. A mercenary hero is a solecism. No one wins eminence by disregard of selfish interest in an army where it is universal. Virtue is tried by finer measures in