He had occasion to censure a cadet who had given, as Jackson believed, the wrong solution of a problem.  On thinking the matter over at home he found that the pupil was right and the teacher wrong.  It was late at night and in the depth of winter, but he immediately started off to the Institute, some distance from his quarters, and sent for the cadet.  The delinquent, answering with much trepidation the untimely summons, found himself to his astonishment the recipient of a frank apology.  Jackson’s scruples carried him even further.  Persons who interlarded their conversation with the unmeaning phrase “you know” were often astonished by the blunt interruption that he did not know; and when he was entreated at parties or receptions to break through his dietary rules, and for courtesy’s sake to accept some delicacy, he would always refuse with the reply that he had “no genius for seeming.”  But if he carried his conscientiousness to extremes, if he laid down stringent rules for his own governance, he neither set himself up for a model nor did he attempt to force his convictions upon others.  He was always tolerant; he knew his own faults, and his own temptations, and if he could say nothing good of a man he would not speak of him at all.  But he was by no means disposed to overlook conduct of which he disapproved, and undue leniency was a weakness to which he never yielded.  If he once lost confidence or discovered deception on the part of one he trusted, he withdrew himself as far as possible from any further dealings with him; and whether with the cadets, or with his brother-officers, if an offence had been committed of which he was called upon to take notice, he was absolutely inflexible.  Punishment or report inevitably followed.  No excuses, no personal feelings, no appeals to the suffering which might be brought upon the innocent, were permitted to interfere with the execution of his duty.

Such were the chief characteristics of the great Confederate as he appeared to the little world of Lexington.  The tall figure, clad in the blue uniform of the United States army, always scrupulously neat, striding to and from the Institute, or standing in the centre of the parade-ground, while the cadet battalion wheeled and deployed at his command, was familiar to the whole community.  But Jackson’s heart was not worn on his sleeve.  Shy and silent as he was, the knowledge that even his closest acquaintances had of him was hardly more than superficial.  A man who was always chary of expressing his opinions, unless they were asked for, who declined argument, and used as few words as possible, attracted but little notice.  A few recognised his clear good sense; the majority considered that if he said little it was because he had nothing worth saying.  Because he went his own way and lived by his own rules he was considered eccentric; because he was sometimes absent-minded, and apt to become absorbed in his own thoughts, he was set down as unpractical; his literal accuracy of statement was construed as the mark of a narrow intellect, and his exceeding modesty served to keep him in the background.