Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/157

Rh there was hardly a better rider in the army, as any who saw the security with which he sat his horse when rapidly riding along the cheering ranks of its soldiers, or when hasting to reach some important engagement or point of observation, will attest. It was impossible to see him as he daily went about his duties without being impressed with the fact that his was no ordinary personality and he no ordinary man.

There was something in his expression of countenance, and his mien, which indicated that behind that plain and kindly exterior there was a tremendous reserve force.

Though few, if any, then dreamed that he possessed the quickness and grasp of intellect, the supreme capacity for leadership, and the genius for war which he afterwards exhibited, there were those who knew him well who placed a very high estimate upon his capacity and who believed that if he ever was given opportunity to serve his country in war his career would be illustrious.

He was, in those piping times of peace, recognized at Lexington as, and was sometimes characterized as being, "a born soldier." The time came in a few years when he was considered by his old friends and neighbors in that community, as he was afterwards aptly designated by his Scotch admirers across the sea, "a heavenborn soldier."

As indicating the estimation in which Jackson's capacity and abilities as a soldier and a commander in war was held, in 1861, by those who knew him, it is only needed to recall that when Governor Letcher, who was a citizen of Lexington and knew Jackson well, came to select an officer to command the post of Harper's Ferry, then regarded as second in importance to none in the then theater of war, he selected Major Jackson for that responsible command in preference to several officers of higher rank in the military service of the State, including one or more major-generals and brigadier-generals.

In fact, there was already a major-general and at least one brigadier at Harper's Ferry when, in May, 1861, Major, or, as was his advanced rank by contemporaneous promotion, Colonel, T. J. Jackson, was, on the nomination of Virginia's great War