My dear Pastor,

In my tent last night, after a fatiguing day’s service, I remembered that I had failed to send you my contribution to our coloured Sunday school.  Enclosed you will find my check for that object, which please acknowledge at your earliest convenience, and oblige yours faithfully,

T.J.  Jackson.

To his wife, however, he was less reserved.  “Yesterday,” he wrote, we “fought a great battle and gained a great victory, for which all the glory is due to God alone...Whilst great credit is due to other parts of our gallant army, God made my brigade more instrumental than any other in repulsing the main attack.  This is for your information only—­say nothing about it.  Let others speak praise, not myself.”

Again, on August 5:  “And so you think the papers ought to say more about your husband.  My brigade is not a brigade of newspaper correspondents.  I know that the First Brigade was the first to meet and pass our retreating forces—­to push on with no other aid than the smiles of God; to boldly take up its position with the artillery that was under my command—­to arrest the victorious foe in his onward progress—­to hold him in check until the reinforcements arrived—­and finally to charge bayonets, and, thus advancing, to pierce the enemy’s centre.  I am well satisfied with what it did, and so are my generals, Johnston and Beauregard.  It is not to be expected that I should receive the credit that Generals Johnston and Beauregard would, because I was under them; but I am thankful to my ever-kind Heavenly Father that He makes me content to await His own good time and pleasure for commendation—­knowing that all things work together for my good.  If my brigade can always play so important and useful a part as it did in the last battle, I trust I shall ever be most grateful.  As you think the papers do not notice me enough, I send a specimen, which you will see from the upper part of the paper is a ‘leader.’  My darling, never distrust our God, Who doeth all things well.  In due time He will make manifest all His pleasure, which is all His people should desire.  You must not be concerned at seeing other parts of the army lauded, and my brigade not mentioned.  Truth is mighty and will prevail.  When the official reports are published, if not before, I expect to see justice done to this noble body of patriots."* (* Both Johnston and Beauregard, in their official reports, did full justice to Jackson and his brigade.)

These letters reveal a generous pride in the valour of his troops, and a very human love of approbation struggles with the curb which his religious principles had placed on his ambition.  Like Nelson, he felt perhaps that before long he would have “a Gazette of his own.”  But still, of his own achievements, of his skilful tactics, of his personal behaviour, of his well-timed orders, he spoke no word, and the victory was ascribed to a higher power.  “The charge of the 2nd and 4th Virginia,” he wrote in his modest report, “through the blessing of God, Who gave us the victory, pierced the centre of the enemy."* (* O.R. volume 2 page 482.)