At his feet lay the city, with its busy streets and imposing edifices.  To the south ran the Potomac, bearing on its ample tide the snowy sails of many merchantmen, and spanned by a bridge more than a mile in length.  Over against the Capitol, looking down on that wide-watered shore, stood the white porch of Arlington, once the property of Washington, and now the home of a young officer of the United States army, Robert Edward Lee.  Beyond Arlington lay Virginia, Jackson’s native State, stretching back in leafy hills and verdant pastures, and far and low upon the western horizon his own mountains loomed faintly through the summer haze.  It was a strange freak of fortune that placed him at the very outset of his career within sight of the theatre of his most famous victories.  It was a still stranger caprice that was to make the name of the simple country youth, ill-educated and penniless, as terrible in Washington as the name of the Black Douglas was once in Durham and Carlisle.

1842.

It was in July 1842 that one of America’s greatest soldiers first answered to his name on the parade-ground at West Point.  Shy and silent, clad in Virginia homespun, with the whole of his personal effects carried in a pair of weather-stained saddle bags, the impression that he made on his future comrades, as the Secretary of War appears to have anticipated, was by no means favourable.  The West Point cadets were then, as now, remarkable for their upright carriage, the neatness of their appointments, and their soldierly bearing towards their officers and towards each other.  The grey coatee, decorated with bright buttons and broad gold lace, the shako with tall plumes, the spotless white trousers, set off the trim young figures to the best advantage; and the full-dress parade of the cadet battalion, marked by discipline and precision in every movement, is still one of the most attractive of military spectacles.

These natty young gentlemen were not slow to detect the superficial deficiencies of the newcomer.  A system of practical joking, carried to extremes, had long been a feature of West Point life.  Jackson, with the rusticity of the backwoods apparent at every turn, promised the highest sport.  And here it may be written, once for all, that however nearly in point of character the intended victim reached the heroic standard, his outward graces were few.  His features were well cut, his forehead high, his mouth small and firm, and his complexion fresh.  Yet the ensemble was not striking, nor was it redeemed by grave eyes and a heavy jaw, a strong but angular frame, a certain awkwardness of movement, and large hands and feet.  His would-be tormentors, however, soon found they had mistaken their man.  The homespun jacket covered a natural shrewdness which had been sharpened by responsibility.  The readiness of resource which had characterised the whilom constable was more than a match for their most ingenious schemes; and baffled by a temper which they were powerless to disturb, their attempts at persecution, apparently more productive of amusement to their victim than to themselves, were soon abandoned.