The Northern infantry, indeed, had not fought like troops who own their opponents as the better men.  Rather had they displayed an elasticity of spirit unsuspected by their enemies; and the Confederate soldiers, who knew with what fierce courage the attack had been sustained, looked on the battle of Sharpsburg as the most splendid of their achievements.  No small share of the glory fell to Jackson.  Since the victory of Cedar Run, his fame, somewhat obscured by Frayser’s Farm and Malvern Hill, had increased by leaps and bounds, and the defence of the West Wood was classed with the march to Manassas Junction, the three days’ battle about Groveton, and the swift seizure of Harper’s Ferry.  On October 2, Lee proposed to the President that the Army of Northern Virginia should be organised in two army corps, for the command of which he recommended Longstreet and Jackson.  “My opinion,” wrote Lee, “of General Jackson has been greatly enhanced during this expedition.  He is true, honest, and brave; has a single eye to the good of the service, and spares no exertion to accomplish his object."* (* O.R. volume 19 part 2 page 643.) On October 11, Jackson received his promotion as Lieutenant-General, and was appointed to the Second Army Corps, consisting at that date of his own division, the Light Division, Ewell’s, and D.H.  Hill’s, together with Colonel Brown’s battalion of artillery; a force of 1917 officers, 25,000 men, and 126 guns.

Jackson does not appear to have been unduly elated by his promotion, for two days after his appointment he wrote to his wife that there was no position in the world equal to that of a minister of the Gospel, and his letter was principally concerned with the lessons he had learned from the sermon of the previous Sunday.* (* About this time he made a successful appearance in a new role.  In September, General Bradley T. Johnson was told off to accompany Colonel Garnet Wolseley, the Hon. Francis Lawley, Special Correspondent to the Times, and Mr. Vizetelly, Special Correspondent of the Illustrated London News, round the Confederate camps.  “By order of General Lee,” he says, “I introduced the party to General Jackson.  We were all seated in front of General Jackson’s tent, and he took up the conversation.  He had been to England, and had been greatly impressed with the architecture of Durham Cathedral and with the history of the bishopric.  The Bishops had been Palatines from the date of the Conquest, and exercised semi-royal authority over their bishopric.

“There is a fair history of the Palatinate of Durham in Blackstone and Coke, but I can hardly think that General Jackson derived his information from those two fountains of the law.  Anyhow, he cross-examined the Englishmen in detail about the cathedral and the close and the rights of the bishops, etc. etc.  He gave them no chance to talk, and kept them busy answering questions, for he knew more about Durham than they did.

“As we rode away, I said:  “Gentlemen, you have disclosed Jackson in a new character to me, and I’ve been carefully observing him for a year and a half.  You have made him exhibit finesse, for he did all the talking to keep you from asking too curious or embarrassing questions.  I never saw anything like it in him before.* We all laughed, and agreed that the General had been too much for the interviewers.” (* Memoirs pages 580 and 581.)