MCCLELLAN’S CHANGE OF BASE AND MALVERN HILL. 389

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THE ARTILLERY ENGAGEMENT AT WHITEOAK BRIDGE. FROM A SKETCHMADE AT THE TIME.

The view is from Franklin’s positionsouth of the bridge, Jackson’s and I). II.Hill ’s troops being seen in the distance.

Major Dabney, in his life of Jackson, thus comments on the inaction ofthat officer: “ On this occasion it would appear, if the vast interests depend-ent upon General Jackson’s cooperation with the proposed attack upon thecenter were considered, that he came short of the efficiency in action forwhich he was everywhere else noted.” After showing how the crossing ofWhite Oak might have been effected, Dabney adds: 11 The list of casualtieswould have been larger than that presented on the 30 th, of one cannoneerwounded; but how much shorter would have been the bloody list filled upthe next day at Malvern Hill f This temporary eclipse of Jackson’s geniuswas probably to be explained by physical causes. The labor of the previousdays, the sleeplessness, the wear of gigantic cares, with the drenching of thecomfortless night, had sunk the elasticity of his will and the quickness of hisinvention for the nonce below their wonted tension. And which of the sonsof man is so great as never to experience this t ”

I think that an important factor in this inaction was Jackson’s pity for hisown corps, worn out by long and exhausting marches, and reduced in num-bers by its numerous sanguinary battles. He thought that the garrison ofRichmond ought now to bear the brunt of the fighting. None of us knewthat the veterans of Longstreet and A. P. Hill were unsupported; nor did weeven know that the firing that we heard was theirs. Had all our troops beenat Frayser’s farm, there would have been 110 Malvern Hill.

Jackson’s genius never shone when he was under the command of another.It seemed then to be shrouded or paralyzed. Compare his inertness on thisoccasion with the wonderful vigor shown a few weeks later at Slaughter’s[Cedar] Mountain in the stealthy march to Pope ’s rear, and later still in the