“Jackson seems to have been ignorant of what General Lee expected of him, and badly informed about Brackett’s Ford.  When he found how strenuous was our defence at the bridge, he should have turned his attention to Brackett’s Ford also.  A force could have been as quietly gathered there as at the bridge; a strong infantry movement at the ford would have easily overrun our small force there, placing our right at Glendale, held by Slocum’s division, in great jeopardy, and turning our force at the bridge by getting between it and Glendale.  In fact, it is likely that we should have been defeated that day had General Jackson done what his great reputation seems to make it imperative he should have done."* (* Battles and Leaders volume 2 page 381.) But General Franklin’s opinion as to the ease with which Brackett’s Ford might have been passed is not justified by the facts.  In the first place, General Slocum, who was facing Huger, and had little to do throughout the day, had two brigades within easy distance of the crossing; in the second place, General Wright reported the ford impassable; and in the third place, General Franklin himself admits that directly Wright’s scouts were seen near the ford two brigades of Sedgwick’s division were sent to oppose their passage.

General Long, in his life of Lee, finds excuse for Jackson in a story that he was utterly exhausted, and that his staff let him sleep until the sun was high.  Apart from the unlikelihood that a man who seems to have done without sleep whenever the enemy was in front should have permitted himself to be overpowered at such a crisis, we have Colonel Munford’s evidence that the general was well in advance of his columns at sunrise, and the regimental reports show that the troops were roused at 2.30 A.M.

Jackson may well have been exhausted.  He had certainly not spared himself during the operations.  On the night of the 27th, after the battle of Gaines’ Mill, he went over to Stuart’s camp at midnight, and a long conference took place.  At 8.30 on the morning of the 29th he visited Magruder, riding across Grapevine Bridge from McGehee’s House, and his start must have been an early one.  In a letter to his wife, dated near the White Oak Bridge, he says that in consequence of the heavy rain he rose “about midnight” on the 30th.  Yet his medical director, although he noticed that the general fell asleep while he was eating his supper the same evening, says that he never saw him more active and energetic than during the engagement;* (* Letter from Dr. Hunter McGuire to the author.) and Jackson himself, neither in his report nor elsewhere, ever admitted that he was in any way to blame.