ed his warrant,
accompanied by some excellent advice. "Sir," said the Secretary, "you
have a good name. Go to West Point, and the first man who insults
you, knock him down, and have it charged to my account!"

Mr. Hays proposed that the new-fledged cadet should stay with him for
a few days in order to see the sights of Washington. But as the
Academy was already in session, Jackson, with a strong appreciation
of the value of time, begged to decline. He was content to ascend to
the roof of the Capitol, then still building, and look once on the
magnificent panorama of which it is the centre.

At his feet lay the city, with its busy streets and imposing
edifices. To the south ran the Potomac, bearing on its ample tide the
snowy sails of many merchantmen, and spanned by a bridge more than a
mile in length. Over against the Capitol, looking down on that
wide-watered shore, stood the white porch of Arlington, once the
property of Washington, and now the home of a young officer of the
United States army, Robert Edward Lee. Beyond Arlington lay Virginia,
Jackson's native State, stretching back in leafy hills and verdant
pastures, and far and low upon the western horizon his own mountains
loomed faintly through the summer haze. It was a strange freak of
fortune that placed him at the very outset of his career within sight
of the theatre of his most famous victories. It was a still stranger
caprice that was to make the name of the simple country youth,
ill-educated and penniless, as terrible in Washington as the name of
the Black Douglas was once in Durham and Carlisle.

1842.

It was in July 1842 that one of America's greatest soldiers first
answered to his name on the parade-ground at West Point. Shy and
silent, clad in Virginia homespun, with the whole of his personal
effects carried in a pair of weather-stained saddle bags, the
impression that he made on his future comrades, as the Secretary of
War appears to have anticipated, was by no means favourable. The West
Point cadets were then, as now, remarkable for their upright
carriage, the neatness of their appointments, and their soldierly
bearing towards their officers and towards each other. The grey
coatee, decorated with bright buttons and broad gold lace, the shako
with tall plumes, the spotless white trousers, set off the trim young
figures to the best advantage; and the full-dress parade of the cadet
battalion, marked by discipline and precision in every movement, is