"Viewing things at Washington from human appearances we have great reason for alarm, but my trust is in God. I cannot think that He will permit the madness of men to interfere so materially with the Christian labors of this country at home and abroad." She who, of all the world, knew him best records: "He never was a secessionist and maintained that it was better for the South to fight for her rights in the Union than out of it.... At this time (March 16, 1861) he was strongly for the Union. At the same time, he was a firm State's rights man." At dawn, April 21st, he received an order from the Governor of Virginia to report to him immediately at Richmond, bringing the corps of cadets with him. At 1 o'clock P.M. he bade a final farewell to home and Lexington. On June 4th he writes incidentally to his "Little One" from Harper's Ferry: "The troops here have been divided into brigades, and the Virginia forces under General Johnston constitute the First Brigade, of which I am in command." This brigade was to share with the commanding officers the _sobriquet_ by which he is known better than under his real name. In the battery attached to it were forty-nine graduates of colleges, besides nineteen divinity students. From the first victory of Manassas (June 21, 1861), when General Bee turned the tide of battle by shouting to the wavering lines, "Look at Jackson, standing like a stone wall! Rally behind the Virginians!" to the fatal blunder of May 2, 1863, "Stonewall" Jackson was the flashing star that guided the Confederate armies to glorious success. His faith in the God of armies was so blended with the conviction that he was a chosen instrument in the Omnipotent hand to repel invasion and secure an honorable peace for his beloved State, that his sublime confidence infused officers and men. A fragment of a camp ballad, popular in 1862, will give a faint idea of the enthusiasm excited by the "praying fighter:" Silence! ground arms! kneel all! caps off! Old Blue-light's going to pray. Strangle the fool that dares to scoff! Attention! 'tis his way! Appealing from his native sod In _forma pauperis_ to God; "Lay bare Thine arm--stretch forth Thy rod! Amen!" _That's_ Stonewall's way. Love-letters to his "only sweetheart," written in camp, in the saddle, from smoking battle-fields, red with the blood of the slain, reveal a heart as tender as it was stout, faith that never failed, the courage of a lion, the unspoiled simplicity of a child. Our last extract from war papers is significant of what might have been but for the fall of the South's greatest chieftain at the most critical period of the struggle: "Jackson alone stands forth the one advocate of 'ceaseless invasion' as our 'safest hope,' the first conviction of his mind and a policy in accord with Southern feeling."