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
still one of the most attractive of military spectacles.

These natty young gentlemen were not slow to detect the superficial
deficiencies of the newcomer. A system of practical joking, carried