was never happier than when, on the eve of some great battle, he made his bivouac within a square of the Guard; never more at ease than when exchanging rough compliments with the veterans of Rivoli or Jena.  He was the representative of the army rather than of the nation.  The men knew that no civilian would be preferred before them; that their gallant deeds were certain of his recognition; that their claims to the cross, to pension, and to promotion, would be as carefully considered as the claims of their generals.  They loved Napoleon and they trusted him; and whatever may have been his faults, he was “the Little Corporal,” the friend and comrade of his soldiers, to the end.

It was by the same hooks of steel that Stonewall Jackson grappled the hearts of the Second Army Corps to his own.  His men loved him, not merely because he was the bravest man they had ever known, the strongest, and the most resolute, not because he had given them glory, and had made them heroes whose fame was known beyond the confines of the South, but because he was one of themselves, with no interests apart from their interests; because he raised them to his own level, respecting them not merely as soldiers, but as comrades, the tried comrades of many a hard fight and weary march.  Although he ruled them with a rod of iron, he made no secret, either officially or privately, of his deep and abiding admiration for their self-sacrificing valour.  His very dispatches showed that he regarded his own skill and courage as small indeed when compared with theirs.  Like Napoleon’s, his congratulatory orders were conspicuous for the absence of all reference to himself; it was always “we,” not “I,” and he was among the first to recognise the worth of the rank and file.  “One day,” says Dr. McGuire, “early in the war, when the Second Virginia Regiment marched by, I said to General Johnston, “If these men will not fight, you have no troops that will.”  He expressed the prevalent opinion of the day in his reply, saying, “I would not give one company of regulars for the whole regiment.”  When I returned to Jackson I had occasion to quote General Johnston’s opinion.  “Did he say that?” he asked, “and of those splendid men?” And then he added:  “The patriot volunteer, fighting for his country and his rights, makes the most reliable soldier upon earth.”  And his veterans knew more than that their general believed them to be heroes.  They knew that thia great, valiant man, beside whom all others, save Lee himself, seemed small and feeble, this mighty captain, who held the hosts of the enemy in the hollow of his hand, was the kindest and the most considerate of human beings.  To them he was “Old Jack” in the same affectionate sense as he had been “Old Jack” to his class-mates at West Point.  They followed him willingly, for they knew that the path he trod was the way to victory; but they loved him as children do their parents, because they were his first thought and his last.