“December 3, 1862.

“General R.E.  Lee,

“Commanding Army of Northern Virginia.

“General,—­Your letter of this date, recommending that I distribute the rifle and Napoleon guns ’so as to give General D.H.  Hill a fair proportion’ has been received.  I respectfully request, if any such distribution is to be made, that you will direct your chief of artillery or some other officer to do it; but I hope that none of the guns which belonged to the Army of the Valley before it became part of the Army of Northern Virginia, after the battle of Cedar Run, will be taken from it.  If since that time any artillery has improperly come into my command, I trust that it will be taken away, and the person in whose possession it may be found punished, if his conduct requires it.  So careful was I to prevent an improper distribution of the artillery and other public property captured at Harper’s Ferry, that I issued a written order directing my staff officers to turn over to the proper chiefs of staff of the Army of Northern Virginia all captured stores.  A copy of the order is herewith enclosed.

“General D.H.  Hill’s artillery wants existed at the time he was assigned to my command, and it is hoped that the artillery which belonged to the Army of the Valley will not be taken to supply his wants.

“I am, General, your obedient servant,

“T.J.  Jackson, Lieutenant-General.”

No further correspondence is to be found on the subject, so it may be presumed that the protest was successful.

Jackson’s relations with the rank and file have already been referred to, and although he was now commander of an army corps, and universally acknowledged as one of the foremost generals of the Confederacy, his rise in rank and reputation had brought no increase of dignity.  He still treated the humblest privates with the same courtesy that he treated the Commander-in-Chief.  He never repelled their advances, nor refused, if he could, to satisfy their curiosity; and although he seldom went out of his way to speak to them, if any soldier addressed him, especially if he belonged to a regiment recruited from the Valley, he seldom omitted to make some inquiry after those he had left at home.  Never, it was said, was his tone more gentle or his smile more winning than when he was speaking to some ragged representative of his old brigade.  How his heart went out to them may be inferred from the following.  Writing to a friend at Richmond he said:  “Though I have been relieved from command in the Valley, and may never again be assigned to that important trust, yet I feel deeply when I see the patriotic people of that region under the heel of a hateful military despotism.  There are all the hopes of those who have been with me from the commencement of the war in Virginia, who have repeatedly left their homes and families in the hands of the enemy, to brave the dangers of battle and disease; and there are those who have so devotedly laboured for the relief of our suffering sick and wounded.”