ed them, preserving untainted their
hereditary virtues. Shrewd, practical, and thrifty, prosperity has
consistently rewarded them; and yet, in common with the Irishmen of
English stock, they have found in the trade of arms the most
congenial outlet for their energies. An abiding love of peace can
hardly be enumerated amongst their more prominent characteristics;
and it is a remarkable fact, which, unless there is some mysterious
property in the air, can only be explained by the intermixture of
races, that Ireland "within the Pale" has been peculiarly prolific of
military genius. As England has bred admirals, so the sister isle has
bred soldiers. The tenacious courage of the Anglo-Saxon, blended with
the spirit of that people which above all others delights in war, has
proved on both sides of the Atlantic a most powerful combination of
martial qualities. The same mixed strain which gave England Wolfe and
Wellington, the Napiers and the Lawrences, has given America some of
her greatest captains; and not the least famous of her Presidents is
that General Jackson who won the battle of New Orleans in 1814. So,
early in the century the name became known beyond the seas; but
whether the same blood ran in the veins of the Confederate general
and of the soldier President is a matter of some doubt. The former,
in almost every single respect, save his warm heart, was the exact
converse of the typical Irishman, the latter had a hot temper and a
ready wit. Both, however, were undeniably fond of fighting, and a
letter still preserved attests that their ancestors had lived in the
same parish of Londonderry.* (* This letter is in the possession of
Thomas Jackson Arnold, Esquire, of Beverly, West Virginia, nephew of
General "Stonewall" Jackson.)

1748.

John Jackson, the great-grandfather of our hero, landed in America in
1748, and it was not long before he set his face towards the
wilderness. The emigrants from Ulster appear as a rule to have moved
westward. The States along the coast were already colonised, and,
despite its fertility, the country was little to their taste. But
beyond the border, in the broad Appalachian valley which runs from
the St. Lawrence to Alabama, on the banks of the great rivers, the
Susquehanna, the Ohio, the Cumberland, and the Tennessee, they found
a land after their own heart, a soil with whose properties they were
familiar, the sweet grasses and soft contours of their native hills.
Here, too, there was