haracter to me, and I've been carefully observing him for a year
and a half. You have made him exhibit finesse, for he did all the
talking to keep you from asking too curious or embarrassing
questions. I never saw anything like it in him before.* We all
laughed, and agreed that the General had been too much for the
interviewers." (* Memoirs pages 580 and 581.)

The soldiers of the Second Army Corps, however, did not allow him to
forget his greatness. In their bivouacs by the clear waters of the
Opequon, with abundance of supplies and with ample leisure for
recuperation, the troops rapidly regained their strength and spirit.
The reaction found vent in the most extravagant gaiety. No
circumstance that promised entertainment was permitted to pass
without attention, and the jest started at the expense of some
unfortunate wight, conspicuous for peculiarity of dress or demeanour,
was taken up by a hundred voices. None were spared. A trim staff
officer was horrified at the irreverent reception of his nicely
twisted moustache, as he heard from behind innumerable trees: "Take
them mice out o' your mouth! take 'em out--no use to say they ain't
there, see their tails hanging out!" Another, sporting immense
whiskers, was urged "to come out o' that bunch of hair! I know you're
in there! I see your ears a-working!" So the soldiers chaffed the
dandies, and the camp rang with laughter; fun and frolic were always
in the air, and the fierce fighters of Sharpsburg behaved like
schoolboys on a holiday. But when the general rode by the men
remembered the victories they had won and to whom they owed them, the
hardships they had endured, and who had shared them; and the
appearance of 'Little Sorrel' was the sure precursor of a scene of
the wildest enthusiasm. The horse soon learned what the cheers
implied, and directly they began he would break into a gallop, as if
to carry his rider as quickly as possible through the embarrassing
ordeal. But the soldiers were not to be deterred by their commander's
modesty, and whenever he was compelled to pass through the bivouacs
the same tribute was so invariably offered that the sound of a
distant cheer, rolling down the lines of the Second Army Corps,
always evoked the exclamation: "Boys, look out! here comes old
Stonewall or an old hare!" "These being the only individuals," writes
one of Jackson's soldiers, "who never failed to bring down the whole
house."

Nothing could express more clearly the loy