cluding the Wilderness,
corps of sharp-shooters, each 180 strong, were organised in many of
the brigades of Lee's army. These "light" troops undertook the
outpost, advanced, flank, and rear guard duties. The men were
carefully selected; they were trained judges of distance, skilful and
enterprising on patrol, and first-rate marksmen, and their rifles
were often fitted with telescopic sights. In order to increase their
confidence in each other they were subdivided into groups of fours,
which messed and slept together, and were never separated in action.
These corps did excellent service during the campaign of 1864.

CHAPTER 2.25. THE SOLDIER AND THE MAN.* (* Copyright 1898 by
Longmans, Green, & Co.)

To the mourning of a sore-stricken nation Stonewall Jackson was
carried to his rest. As the hearse passed to the Capitol, and the
guns which had so lately proclaimed the victory of Chancellorsville
thundered forth their requiem to the hero of the fight, the streets
of Richmond were thronged with a silent and weeping multitude. In the
Hall of Representatives, surrounded by a guard of infantry, the body
lay in state; and thither, in their thousands, from the President to
the maimed soldier, from the generals of the Valley army to wondering
children, borne in their mothers' arms, the people came to look their
last upon the illustrious dead. The open coffin, placed before the
Speaker's chair, was draped in the Confederate standard; the State
colours were furled along, the galleries; and the expression on the
face, firm and resolute, as if the spirit of battle still lingered in
the lifeless clay, was that of a great conqueror, wise in council,
mighty in the strife. But as the evening drew on the darkened
chamber, hung with deep mourning, and resounding to the clash of
arms, lost its sombre and martial aspect. Garlands of soft spring
flowers, the tribute of the women of Virginia, rose high above the
bier, and white pyramids of lilies, the emblems of purity and
meekness, recalled the blameless life of the Christian soldier.

From Richmond the remains were conveyed to Lexington, and, under the
charge of the cadets, lay for the night in the lecture-room of the
Institute, which Jackson had quitted just two years before. The next
morning he was buried, as he himself had wished, in the little
cemetery above the town.

Many were the mourners that stood around the grave, but they were few
in number compared with those whose hearts