Personally the most modest of men, officially he was the most
exacting of commanders, and his purpose to enforce a thorough
performance of duty, and his stern disapprobation of remissness and
self-indulgence were veiled by no affectations of politeness. Those
who came to serve near his person, if they were not wholly
like-minded with himself, usually underwent, at first, a sort of
breaking in, accompanied with no little chafing to restless spirits.
The expedition to Romney was, to such officers, just such an
apprenticeship to Jackson's methods of making war. All this was fully
known to him; but while he keenly felt the injustice, he disdained to
resent it, or to condescend to any explanation."* (* Dabney volume 1
page 321.)
Jackson returned to Winchester with no anticipation that the darkest
days of his military life were close at hand. Little Sorrel, the
charger he had ridden at Bull Run, leaving the senior members of the
staff toiling far in rear, had covered forty miles of mountain roads
in one short winter day. "After going to an hotel and divesting
himself of the mud which had bespattered him in his rapid ride, he
proceeded to Dr. Graham's. In order to give his wife a surprise he
had not intimated when he would return.
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