Stonewall Jackson had few equals as a general. In all his career no one could accuse him of a tactical mistake. He was fearless, but not reckless. He had wonderful power over his men, who loved him and would fight for him as for no other. He knew when he could strike a telling blow and knew as well when it was time to hold back. He carefully planned all his movements and made none which he had not fully matured. His loss was a terrible blow to Lee, who felt that in Jackson he had lost his right arm.

In his religious fervor, his serene and indomitable courage and his extraordinary influence over his soldiers, he reminds us of the great Puritan leaders who fought under Cromwell. On the field of battle he was never known to lose his self-possession or to be surprised by any sudden change of fortune. His quick eye would detect the moment to act and his keen judgment tell when and how the stroke should be made.

As a man he was modest, upright and remarkably pure-minded. In conversation he was frank and firm in manner, looking straight at and seemingly through you as he talked. None of his opinions or convictions was languidly held, he being intensely earnest in all his beliefs and rules of conduct. He was strictly temperate in his habits. On one occasion, when wet and fatigued, his physician gave him some whiskey. He drank it with a wry face and the doctor asked him if it was not good whiskey.

"Oh," said he, "it's good enough. I like liquor. That's why I don't drink it."

GEORGE H. THOMAS, THE ROCK OF

CHICKAMAUGA

GENERAL THOMAS was one of the great generals of the Civil War who was too modest to blow his own trumpet. He kept quiet and stayed behind while smaller men crowded to the front. He was not only a man of modesty, but also a man of conscience. After the battle of Shiloh he was given the position which belonged of right to Grant, but would not accept it, feeling that Grant had not been justly treated. In the same way, before the battle of Perryville he was put over Buell, but he declined for the same reason, saying that a soldier ought to have the right to fight a battle for which he had made preparations. Men of this type are rare phenomena in war or peace.

There was thus no self-seeking in General Thomas. He was a true gentleman, a man who would not consent to rise through injustice to others. As a soldier there was not his superior in the army. He was of the slow and sure kind; he would not strike until he was ready, and when he did strike something was sure to fall. He was deliberate in his motions and cautious in his character. His men called him "Old Reliable,” “Old Pap Safety," "Old Slow-Trot,” and also "Pop Thomas" and "Uncle George." He never joked or was familiar with them, yet few commanders in the army had more the confidence and affection of their men. He was not of the class of men who seek to shine, but of that class with whom duty stands before glory.

He was ever modest. After the war he could rarely be induced to speak of the great military movements in which he had taken part. One might know him for years and yet never learn from him that he had won great victories. Yet as a soldier he bore the highest reputation, and an able critic has said, "He was one of the very few commanders who never committed a serious military error, who never sacrificed a command, and who never lost a battle."

Personally he was a peculiar character. He hated to change habits or even his clothes, and it was a sore trial to him to give up his old coat. In the early part of the war he rose rapidly in rank from colonel to brigadier-general, but he was long a general before he quit wearing his colonel's uniform. So, six months after he was made a major-general, he still wore the old brigadier coat and would have kept on wearing it had not one of his aides, helped by his servant, slyly abstracted the rusty coat and replaced it with a new one, with the stars suited to his rank.

George Henry Thomas was a Virginian, born in Southampton County, July 31, 1816. As a boy he spent many years in school, but by watching workmen he learned how to make saddles, boots, and furniture, thus cultivating a useful habit of observation. He was twenty years old and was studying law under his uncle when he was offered a cadetship at West Point. This hit his fancy and he gave up law for the army, in which the remainder of his life was passed.

Graduating in 1840, he was made a second lieutenant in the artillery service and sent to Florida, where war with the Seminole Indians was still going on. His second chance for active service came under General Taylor in the Mexican War. Here he fought so gal

lantly at Monterey and Buena Vista that the citizens of his native county, proud of his bravery, presented him with a sword. The war department gave him the brevet rank of captain.

Made a major in the cavalry in 1855, Thomas was sent to Texas and remained there for five years, seeing some service against the Indians. In one skirmish an Indian's arrow pierced his chin and sank into his breast, but he pulled it out and went on fighting. He found life more dangerous when at home in 1860 on leave of absence, since he was caught in a railroad accident, in which his spine was injured. This was perhaps the cause of his slow riding and deliberate manner of moving in the war that soon followed.

In 1861 the secession movement in the South filled the land with rumors of war and the military men of North and South began to line up with their respective sections. Lee and Stonewall Jackson prepared to draw their swords for their native State and it was supposed that Thomas would do the same, especially as, early in 1861, he had asked for a position as instructor of cadets in the Lexington Military Academy, in which Jackson was a professor. But Major Thomas did not view his duties to the Union in that way, and when the State seceded he remained in the old army.

His first duty was on April 21, when he helped put down a secession riot in Maryland. On May 5 he was made colonel of his regiment, the fifth cavalry, and took part in the fight between Stonewall Jackson and General Patterson at Falling Waters. In August he was made brigadier-general and sent to Kentucky. Here he soon found himself opposed to the Confederate General Zollicoffer, who had invaded Kentucky by way of Cumberland Gap.