The cadets of the Institute, although they wore a uniform, were taught by officers of the regular army, were disciplined as soldiers, and spent some months of their course in camp, were not destined for a military career.  All aspirants for commissions in the United States army had to pass through West Point; and the training of the State colleges—­for Virginia was not solitary in the possession of such an institution—­however much it may have benefited both the minds and bodies of the rising generation, was of immediate value only to those who became officers of the State militia.  Still in all essential respects the Military Institute was little behind West Point.  The discipline was as strict, the drill but little less precise.  The cadets had their own officers and their own sergeants, and the whole establishment was administered on a military footing.  No pains were spared either by the State or the faculty to maintain the peculiar character of the school; and the little battalion, although the members were hardly likely to see service, was as carefully trained as if each private in the ranks might one day become a general officer.  It was fortunate indeed for Virginia, when she submitted her destinies to the arbitrament of war, that some amongst her statesmen had been firm to the conviction that to defend one’s country is a task not a whit less honourable than to serve her in the ways of peace.  She was unable to avert defeat.  But she more than redeemed her honour; and the efficiency of her troops was in no small degree due to the training so many of her officers had received at the Military Institute.

Still, notwithstanding its practical use to the State, the offer of a chair at Lexington would probably have attracted but few of Jackson’s contemporaries.  But while campaigning was entirely to his taste, life in barracks was the reverse.  In those unenlightened days to be known as an able and zealous soldier was no passport to preferment.  So long as an officer escaped censure his promotion was sure; he might reach without further effort the highest prizes the service offered, and the chances of the dull and indolent were quite as good as those of the capable and energetic.  The one had no need for, the other no incentive to, self-improvement, and it was very generally neglected.  Unless war intervened—­and nothing seemed more improbable than another campaign—­even a Napoleon would have had to submit to the inevitable.  Jackson caught eagerly at the opportunity of freeing himself from an unprofitable groove.

“He believed,” he said, “that a man who had turned, with a good military reputation, to pursuits of a semi-civilian character, and had vigorously prosecuted his mental improvement, would have more chance of success in war than those who had remained in the treadmill of the garrison.”