in abundance; and when both were untrained the Confederate was a more useful soldier than the Northerner.  In the South nearly every man was a hunter, accustomed from boyhood to the use of firearms.  Game was abundant, and it was free to all.  Sport in one form or another was the chief recreation of the people, and their pastoral pursuits left them much leisure for its indulgence.  Every great plantation had its pack of hounds, and fox-hunting, an heirloom from the English colonists, still flourished.  His stud was the pride of every Southern gentleman, and the love of horse-flesh was inherent in the whole population.  No man walked when he could ride, and hundreds of fine horsemen, mounted on steeds of famous lineage, recruited the Confederate squadrons.

But, despite their skill with the rifle, their hunter’s craft, and their dashing horsemanship, the first great battle had been hardly won.  The city-bred Northerners, unused to arms and uninured to hardship, had fought with extraordinary determination; and the same want of discipline that had driven them in rout to Washington had dissolved the victorious Confederates into a tumultuous mob.* (* Colonel Williams, of the 5th Virginia, writes that the Stonewall Brigade was a notable exception to the general disintegration, and that it was in good condition for immediate service on the morning after the battle.) If Jackson knew the worth of his volunteers, he was no stranger to their shortcomings.  His thoughts might be crystallised in the words of Wellington, words which should never be forgotten by those nations which depend for their defence on the services of their citizen soldiery.

“They want,” said the great Duke, speaking of the Portuguese in 1809, “the habits and the spirit of soldiers,—­the habits of command on one side, and of obedience on the other—­mutual confidence between officers and men.”

In order that during the respite now offered he might instil these habits into his brigade, Jackson neither took furlough himself nor granted it to others.  His regiments were constantly exercised on the parade-ground.  Shoulder to shoulder they advanced and retired, marched and countermarched, massed in column, formed line to front or flank, until they learned to move as a machine, until the limbs obeyed before the order had passed from ear to brain, until obedience became an instinct and cohesion a necessity of their nature.  They learned to listen for the word of the officer, to look to him before they moved hand or foot; and, in that subjection of their own individuality to the will of their superior, they acquired that steadiness in battle, that energy on the march, that discipline in quarters which made the First Brigade worthy of the name it had already won.  “Every officer and soldier,” said their commander, “who is able to do duty ought to be busily engaged in military preparation by hard drilling, in order that, through the blessing of God, we may be victorious in the battles which in His all-wise providence may await us.”