Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 20.djvu/38

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32

Southern Historical Society Papers.

JACKSON ON EWELL.

What General Jackson thought of General Ewell's services may be inferred from Dr. Dabney's account of an interview between Jackson and Mr. Boteler, held July, 1862, while the army was con- fronting McClellan at Harrison's Landing. General Jackson advised an immediate invasion of the North, and asked Mr. Boteler to " impress his views on the Government," adding, "he was willing to follow, not to lead in this glorious enterprise. He was willing to follow anybody General Lee or the gallant Ewell." {Life of Jackson. )

GENERAL EARLY' S VIEWS.

General Jubal A. Early, as true and unselfish as he is brave, always ready to break a lance to defend the memory of a comrade unjustly and unduly criticised or censured, writes in the " Southern Histori- cal Society Papers No. 1877, of General Ewell: "His military record for the year 1862 is so intimately identified with that of Stone- wall Jackson that one cannot exist without the other. The fight and pursuit of Banks down the Valley, Cross Keys, Port Republic, Cold Harbor, Slaughter's Mountain and that most wonderful dash to Pope's rear, in 1862, would be shorn of half their proportions if Ewell's name was blotted from the record. Jackson's men made a demand upon his energy, courage and skill that was not promptly honored, and he was maimed for life in earnestly seconding his immortal leader in that most brilliant of all his achievements the bewildering display of grand tactics between the armies of Pope and McClellan in the plains of Manassas in the last days of August, 1862.

ALL ECCENTRIC TO OUR FRIENDS.

General Dick Taylor, the son of General Zachary Taylor and the author of book on the war, " Destruction and Reconstruction" com- manded a brigade in Ewell's division during the Valley campaign of 1862. They were good friends, as well as fellow-soldiers. Most of us are in the estimation of our best friends more or less eccentric. So Taylor and Ewell thought Jackson, and so Taylor thought Ewell and so Ewell thought Taylor, and I have no doubt that if Jackson's mind hadn't been full of more important matters he would have thought so of Ewell and Taylor. In July, 1862, Ewell told me of