stools completed the furniture. On the wall hung the general's sword, his overcoat and cap, and in the corner lay his boots. A guard marched to and fro before the door, an Irishman usually from the Irish Battalion, provost guard of the corps; and he took his duty of protecting the general with great pride and seriousness. The general himself was caught outside one bad night, and no persuasion could induce the guard to believe the general. Only the sergeant of the guard at last secured his admission.
In that modest little office Jackson spent the winter, consenting to so much protection only because it was urged that cold or sickness contracted in a tent would impair his efficiency in the duties which devolved upon him. That he regarded these duties seriously, I need not say. Although the campaign was over and winter compelled a cessation of active movements, all his energies were engaged in preparation for the earliest spring. Not for a moment would he think of an absence. He himself was not absent a day; and he earnestly discouraged absence in others. The morning hours and much of the afternoon were spent in the important work he now engaged in. His meals were taken with his staff in a dining tent at our camping grounds and he spent little time at the table. First in the morning the members of the staff, one after another, called with written reports of conditions and wants: quartermaster, commissary, ordnance, medical affairs all passed daily under his attention, and necessary orders were issued or communications written. The adjutant-general then came with two departments of work-papers from army headquarters, or through General Lee, from the War Department, to be transmitted to all the divisions, and papers passing up from the divisions to the commander of the army. Notes were taken of communications that were to be written out in the office of the adjutant-general. Then there were reports of the inspector-general, reports from the military court of the corps in session at Moss Neck all the winter, directions to the topographical engineers as to map-making. There was the survey of military roads. After these matters of important routine, there were letters of military importance to be written to General Lee, to the Secretary of War, to committees of the Confederate Congress.
