It was not, however, on the Secretary's misconception of the
situation that Jackson's request for relief was based. Nor was it the
slur on his judgment that led him to resign. The injury that had been
inflicted by Mr. Benjamin's unfortunate letter was not personal to
himself. It affected the whole army. It was a direct blow to
discipline, and struck at the very heart of military efficiency. Not
only would Jackson himself be unable to enforce his authority over
troops who had so successfully defied his orders; but the whole
edifice of command, throughout the length and breadth of the
Confederacy, would, if he tamely submitted to the Secretary's
extraordinary action, be shaken to its foundations. Johnston, still
smarting under Mr. Davis's rejection of his strategical views, felt
this as acutely as did Jackson. "The discipline of the army," he
wrote to the Secretary of War, "cannot be maintained under such
circumstances. The direct tendency of such orders is to insulate the
commanding general from his troops, to diminish his moral as well as
his official control, and to harass him with the constant fear that
his most matured plans may be marred by orders from his Government
which it is impossible for him to anticipate.
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