Not only did he hold that he who would rule others must himself set the example of punctiliousness, but that to whom much is given, from him much is to be expected.  Honour and promotion fall to the lot of the officer.  His name is associated in dispatches with the valorous deeds of he command, while the private soldier fights on unnoticed in the crowd.  To his colonels, therefore, Jackson was a strict master, and stricter to his generals.  If he had reason to believe that his subordinates were indolent or disobedient, he visited their shortcomings with a heavy hand.  No excuse availed.  Arrest and report followed immediately on detection, and if the cure was rude, the plague of incompetency was radically dealt with.  Spirited young soldiers, proud of their high rank, and in no way underrating their own capacity, rebelled against such discipline; and the knowledge that they were closely watched, that their omissions would be visited on their heads with unfaltering severity, sometimes created a barrier between them and their commander.

But it was only wilful disobedience or actual insubordination that roused Jackson’s wrath.  “If he found in an officer,” says Dabney, “a hearty and zealous purpose to do all his duty, he was the most tolerant and gracious of superiors, overlooking blunders and mistakes with unbounded patience, and repairing them through his own exertions, without even a sign of vexation.”  The delay at the bridge on the morning of Port Republic, so fatal to his design of crushing Fremont, caused no outburst of wrath.  He received his adjutant-general’s report with equanimity, regarding the accident as due to the will of Providence, and therefore to be accepted without complaint.* (* Dabney, Southern Historical Society Papers volume 11 page 152.)

Whether the nobler side of Jackson’s character had a share in creating the confidence which his soldiers already placed in him must be matter of conjecture.  It was well known in the ranks that he was superior to the frailties of human nature; that he was as thorough a Christian as he was a soldier; that he feared the world as little as he did the enemy.* (* His devout habits were no secret in the camp.  Jim, most faithful of servants, declared that he could always tell when there was going to be a battle.  “The general,” he said, “is a great man for prayin’.  He pray night and morning—­all times.  But when I see him git up several times in the night, an’ go off an’ pray, den I know there is goin’ to be somethin’ to pay, an’ I go right away and pack his haversack!”) In all things he was consistent; his sincerity was as clear as the noonday sun, and his faith as firmly rooted as the Massanuttons.  Publicly and privately, in official dispatches and in ordinary conversation, the success of his army was ascribed to the Almighty.  Every victory, as soon as opportunity offered, was followed by the order:  “The chaplains will hold divine service in their respective regiments.”