When oaks crash down they are apt to prostrate the saplings growing around them. Jackson was a very tall oak, and I a very humble sapling. When the great trunk fell, the mere twig disappeared. I had served with Jackson from the beginning of the war; that king of battle dead at Chancellorsville, I had found myself without a commander, and without a home. I was not only called upon in that May of 1863, to mourn the illustrious soldier, who had done me the honor to call me his friend; I had also to look around me for some other general; some other position in the army. I was revolving this important subject in my mind, when I received a note from General J.E.B. Stuart, Jackson’s friend and brother in arms. “Come and see me,” said this note. Forty-eight hours afterward I was at Stuart’s head-quarters, near Culpeper Court-House. When I entered his tent, or rather breadth of canvas, stretched beneath a great oak, Stuart rose from the red blanket upon which he was lying, and held out his hand. As he gazed at me in silence I could see his face flush. “You remind me of Jackson,” he said, retaining my hand and gazing fixedly at me. I bowed my head, making no other reply; for the sight of Stuart brought back to me also many memories; the scouting of the Valley, the hard combats of the Lowland, Cold Harbor, Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, and that last greeting between Jackson and the great commander of the cavalry, on the weird moonlight night at Chancellorsville. Stuart continued to gaze at me, and I could see his eyes slowly fill with tears. “It is a national calamity!” he murmured. “Jackson’s loss is irreparable!”[1] [Footnote 1: His words.] He remained for a moment gazing into my face, then passing his hand over his forehead, he banished by a great effort these depressing memories. His bold features resumed their habitual cheerfulness. Our dialogue was brief, and came rapidly to the point. “Have you been assigned to duty yet, my dear Surry?” “I have not, general.” “Would you like to come with me?” “More than with any general in the army, since Jackson’s death. You know I am sincere in saying that.” “Thanks--then the matter can be very soon arranged, I think. I want another inspector-general, and want _you_.” With these words Stuart seated himself at his desk, wrote a note, which, he dispatched by a courier to army head-quarters; and then throwing aside business, he began laughing and talking. For once the supply of red tape in Richmond seemed temporarily exhausted. Stuart was Lee’s right hand, and when he made a request, the War Office deigned to listen. Four days afterward, I was seated under the canvas of a staff tent, when Stuart hastened up with boyish ardor, holding a paper.