Nor would he have been greatly
to blame. Unless gifted with that moral fortitude which Napoleon
ranks higher than genius or experience, no general would have
succeeded in carrying Lee's design to a successful issue. In his
unhesitating march to Manassas Junction, in his deliberate sojourn
for four-and-twenty hours astride his enemy's communications, in his
daring challenge to Pope's whole army at Groveton, Jackson displayed
the indomitable courage characteristic of the greatest soldiers.
As suggested in the first volume, it is too often overlooked, by
those who study the history of campaign, that war is the province of
uncertainty. The reader has the whole theatre of war displayed before
him. He notes the exact disposition of the opposing forces at each
hour of the campaign, and with this in his mind's eye he condemns or
approves the action of the commanders. In the action of the defeated
general he usually often sees much to blame; in the action of the
successful general but little to admire. But his judgment is not
based on a true foundation. He has ignored the fact that the
information at his disposal was not at the disposal of those he
criticises; and until he realises that both generals, to a greater or
less degree, must have been groping in the dark, he will neither make
just allowance for the errors of the one, nor appreciate the genius
of the other.
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