the very outset the enemy’s retreat was menaced.  The soldiers, sharers in his achievements, compared his tactical leading with that of others, and gave the palm to Jackson.  An officer of his staff, who served continuously with the Army of Northern Virginia, says:  “I was engaged in no great battle subsequent to Jackson’s death in which I did not see the opportunity which, in my opinion, he would have seized, and have routed our opponents; “* (* Major Hotchkiss, C.S.A.) and General Lane writes that on many a hard-fought field, subsequent to Chancellorsville, he heard his veterans exclaim:  “Oh for another Jackson!”

Until Jackson fell the Army of Northern Virginia, except when his advice was overruled, had never missed an opening.  Afterwards it missed many.  Gettysburg, which should have been decisive of the war, was pre-eminently a battle of lost opportunities, and there are others which fall into the same category.  It is a perfectly fair assumption, then, that Jackson, so unerring was his insight, would not only have proved an efficient substitute for Lee, but that he would have won such fame as would have placed him, as it placed his great commander, among the most illustrious soldiers of all ages.  With any of his contemporaries, not even excepting Lee, he compares more than favourably.  Most obedient of subordinates as he was, his strategical views were not always in accordance with those of his Commander-in-Chief.  If Jackson had been in charge of the operations, the disastrous battle of Malvern Hill would never have been fought; Pope would have been cut off from the Rappahannock; McClellan would have found the whole Confederate army arrayed against him at South Mountain, or would have been attacked near Frederick; and Burnside would have been encountered on the North Anna, where defeat would probably have proved his ruin.  It is difficult to compare him with Lee.  A true estimate of Lee’s genius is impossible, for it can never be known to what extent his designs were thwarted by the Confederate Government.  Lee served Mr. Davis; Jackson served Lee, wisest and most helpful of masters.  It would seem, however, that Jackson in one respect was Lee’s superior.  His courage, physical and moral, was not more brilliant or more steadfast; his tactical skill no greater; but he was made of sterner stuff.  His self-confidence was supreme.  He never doubted his ability, with God’s help, to carry out any task his judgment approved.  Lee, on the other hand, was oppressed by a consciousness of his own shortcomings.  Jackson never held but one council of war.  Lee seldom made an important movement without consulting his corps commanders.  Jackson kept his subordinates in their place, exacting from his generals the same implicit obedience he exacted from his corporals.  Lee lost the battle of Gettysburg because he allowed his second in command to argue instead of marching.  Nor was that political courage, which Nelson declared is as necessary for a commander as military courage,