“As I rose to retire, the general said, “Captain, there is plenty of room on my bed, I hope you will share it with me?” I thanked him very much for his courtesy, but said “Good-night,” and slept in a tent, sharing the blankets of one of his aides-de-camp.  In the morning at breakfast-time I noticed that the general said grace before the meal with the same fervour I had remarked before.  An hour or two afterwards it was time for me to return to the station; on this occasion, however, I had a horse, and I returned to the general’s headquarters to bid him adieu.  His little room was vacant, so I slipped in and stood before the fire.  I then noticed my greatcoat stretched before it on a chair.  Shortly afterwards the general entered the room.  He said:  “Captain, I have been trying to dry your greatcoat, but I am afraid I have not succeeded very well.”  That little act illustrates the man’s character.  With the care and responsibilities of a vast army on his shoulders he finds time to do little acts of kindness and thoughtfulness.”

With each of his staff officers he was on most friendly terms; and the visitors to his camp, such as the English officer quoted above, found him a most delightful host, discussing with the ease of an educated gentleman all manner of topics, and displaying not the slightest trace of that awkwardness and extreme diffidence which have been attributed to him.  The range and accuracy of his information surprised them.  “Of military history,” said another English soldier, “he knew more than any other man I met in America; and he was so far from displaying the somewhat grim characteristics that have been associated with his name, that one would have thought his tastes lay in the direction of art and literature.”  “His chief delight,” wrote the Hon. Francis Lawley, who knew him well, “was in the cathedrals of England, notably in York Minster and Westminster Abbey.  He was never tired of talking about them, or listening to details about the chapels and cloisters of Oxford."* (* The Times, June 11, 1863.)

“General Jackson,” writes Lord Wolseley, “had certainly very little to say about military operations, although he was intensely proud of his soldiers, and enthusiastic in his devotion to General Lee; and it was impossible to make him talk of his own achievements.  Nor can I say that his speech betrayed his intellectual powers.  But his manner, which was modesty itself, was most attractive.  He put you at your ease at once, listening with marked courtesy and attention to whatever you might say; and when the subject of conversation was congenial, he was a most interesting companion.  I quite endorse the statement as to his love for beautiful things.  He told me that in all his travels he had seen nothing so beautiful as the lancet windows in York Minster.”