Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/398

380 of the best type of Northern youth, with a spirit as high, as resolute, as could be found in the ranks of Southern gentlemen; and though in theory all enlightened Southerners recognized the high qualities of some of our opponents, this one noble figure in "flesh and blood" was better calculated to inspire respect for "those people," as we had learned to call our adversaries, than many pages of "gray theory."

A little more than a year afterwards, in Early's Valley campaign,—a rude school of warfare,—I was serving as a volunteer aid on General Gordon's staff. The day before the disaster of Fisher's Hill I was ordered, together with another staff officer, to accompany the general on a ride to the front. The general had a well-known weakness for inspecting the outposts—a weakness that made a position in his suite somewhat precarious. The officer with whom I was riding had not been with us long, and when he joined the staff he had just recovered from wounds and imprisonment. A man of winning appearance, sweet temper, and attractive manners, he soon made friends of the military family, and I never learned to love a man so much in so brief an acquaintance, though hearts knit quickly in the stress of war. He was highly educated, and foreign residence and travel had widened his vision without affecting the simple faith and thorough consecration of the Christian. Here let me say that the bearing of the Confederates is not to be understood without taking into account the deep religious feeling of the army and its great leaders. It is a historical element, like any other, and is not to be passed over in summing up the forces of the conflict. "A soldier without religion," says a Prussian officer, who knew our army as well as the German, "is an instrument without value," and it is not unlikely that the knowledge of the part that faith played in sustaining the Southern people may have lent emphasis to the expression of his conviction.