"I never saw him touch a card," writes one who was very near him, "and he never dreamed of uttering an oath under any provocation, nor would he permit it at his headquarters." 69 We are assured by many that he never drank and an explicit statement of his own on the subject is reported: "I promised my mother in my childhood never to touch ardent spirits and a drop has never passed my lips, except the wine of the communion." 70
As the last words show, he had religion as well as morals. He joined the Methodist church when he was fifteen; later the Episcopal. When he was twenty-four, he sent money home to his mother to aid in the building of a church. He carried his Bible with him always. In his reports religion is not obtrusive. When it does occur, it is evidently sincere. "he Lord of Hosts was plainly fighting on our side, and the solid walls of Federal infantry melted away before the straggling, but nevertheless determined, onset of our infantry columns." 71 "Believing that the hand of God was clearly manifested in the signal deliverance of my command from danger, and the crowning success attending it, I ascribe to Him the praise, the honor, and the glory." 72 He inclined to strictness in the observance of Sunday. Captain Colston writes me that when twelve struck of a Saturday night Stuart held up his hand relentlessly and stopped song and dance in their full tide, though youth and beauty begged for just one more. He was equally scrupulous in the field, though, in his feeling of injury because the enemy were not, I seem
