As already related, he looked on the blunders of his officers, if those blunders were honest, and due simply to misconception of the situation, with a tolerant eye.  He knew too much of war and its difficulties to expect that their judgment would be unerring.  He never made the mistake of reprehending the man who had done his best to succeed, and contented himself with pointing out, quietly and courteously, how failure might have been avoided.  “But if he believed,” says his chief of the staff, “that his subordinates were self-indulgent or contumacious, he became a stern and exacting master; ...and during his career a causeless friction was produced in the working of his government over several gallant and meritorious officers who served under him.  This was almost the sole fault of his military character:  that by this jealousy of intentional inefficiency he diminished the sympathy between himself and the general officers next his person by whom his orders were to be executed.  Had he been able to exercise the same energetic authority, through the medium of a zealous personal affection, he would have been a more perfect leader of armies."* (* Dabney volume 2 pages 519 to 520.)

This system of command was in all probability the outcome of deliberate calculation.  No officer, placed in permanent charge of a considerable force, least of all a man who never acted except upon reflection, and who had a wise regard for human nature, could fail to lay down for himself certain principles of conduct towards both officers and men.  It may be, then, that Jackson considered the course he pursued the best adapted to maintain discipline amongst a number of ambitious young generals, some of whom had been senior to himself in the old service, and all of whom had been raised suddenly, with probably some disturbance to their self-possession, to high rank.  It is to be remembered, too, that during the campaigns of 1862 his pre-eminent ability was only by degrees made clear.  It was not everyone who, like General Lee, discerned the great qualities of the silent and unassuming instructor of cadets, and other leaders, of more dashing exterior, with a well-deserved reputation for brilliant courage, may well have doubted whether his capacity was superior to their own.

Such soaring spirits possibly needed a tight hand; and, in any case, Jackson had much cause for irritation.  With Wolfe and Sherman he shared the distinguished honour of being considered crazy by hundreds of self-sufficient mediocrities.  It was impossible that he should have been ignorant, although not one word of complaint ever passed his lips, how grossly he was misrepresented, how he was caricatured in the press, and credited with the most extravagant and foolhardy ideas of war.  Nor did his subordinates, in very many instances, give him that loyal and ungrudging support which he conceived was the due of the commanding general.  More than one of his enterprises fell short of the full measure