State rights, tempered though it was by admiration for the Union;
and thirdly, his clear perception that war was now inevitable,
and that defeat for the South would inevitably mean a violent
change of all the ways of Southern life, above all, a change
imposed by force from outside, instead of the gradual change he
wished to see effected from within. He was opposed to slavery;
and both his own and his wife's slaves had long been free. Like
his famous lieutenant, Stonewall Jackson, he was particularly
kind to the blacks; none of whom ever wanted to leave, once they
had been domiciled at Arlington, the estate that came to him
through his wife, Mary Custis, great-granddaughter of Martha
Washington. But, like Lincoln before the war, he wished
emancipation to come from the slave States themselves, as in time
it must have come, with due regard for compensation.

On the twenty-third of this eventful April Lee was given the
chief command of all Virginia's forces. Three days later "Joe"
Johnston took command of the Virginians at Richmond. One day
later again "Stonewall" Jackson took command at Harper's Ferry.
Johnston played a great and noble part throughout the war; and we
shall meet him again and again, down to the very end. But Jackson
claims our first attention here.

Like all the great leaders on both sides Jackson had been an
officer of regulars. He was, however, in many ways unlike the
army type. He disliked society amusements, was awkward, shy,
reserved, and apparently recluse. Moderately tall, with large
hands and feet, stiff in his movements, ungainly in the saddle,
he was a mere nobody in public estimation when the war broke out.
A few brother-officers had seen his consummate skill and bravery