of collecting the reports of the subordinate commanders, and combining them in the proper form.  The rough drafts were carefully gone over by the general.  Every sentence was weighed; and everything that might possibly convey a wrong impression was at once rejected; evidence was called to clear up disputed points; no inferences or suppositions were allowed to stand; truth was never permitted to be sacrificed to effect; superlatives were rigorously excluded,* (* The report of Sharpsburg, which Jackson had not yet revised at the time of his death, is not altogether free from exaggeration.) and the narratives may be unquestionably accepted as an accurate relation of the facts.  Many stirring passages were added by the general’s own pen; and the praise bestowed upon the troops, both officers and men, is couched in the warmest terms.  Yet much was omitted.  Jackson had a rooted objection to represent the motives of his actions, or to set forth the object of his movements.  In reply to a remonstrance that those who came after him would be embarrassed by the absence of these explanations, and that his fame would suffer, he said:  “The men who come after me must act for themselves; and as to the historians who speak of the movements of my command, I do not concern myself greatly as to what they may say.”  To judge, then, from the reports, Jackson himself had very little to do with his success; indeed, were they the only evidence available, it would be difficult to ascertain whether the more brilliant manoeuvres were ordered by himself or executed on the initiative of others.  But in this he was perfectly consistent.  When the publisher of an illustrated periodical wrote to him, asking him for his portrait and some notes of his battles as the basis of a sketch, he replied that he had no likeness of himself, and had done nothing worthy of mention.  It is not without interest, in this connection, to note that the Old Testament supplied him with a pattern for his reports, just as it supplied him, as he often declared, with precepts and principles applicable to every military emergency.  After he was wounded, enlarging one morning on his favourite topic of practical religion, he turned to the staff officer in attendance, Lieutenant Smith, and asked him with a smile:  “Can you tell me where the Bible gives generals a model for their official reports of battles?” The aide-de-camp answered, laughing, that it never entered his mind to think of looking for such a thing in the Scriptures.  “Nevertheless,” said the general, “there are such; and excellent models, too.  Look, for instance, at the narrative of Joshua’s battles with the Amalekites; there you have one.  It has clearness, brevity, modesty; and it traces the victory to its right source, the blessing of God.”