There  was  no  computation  of  relative  strength  and  not
much  idea  of  plan  or  tactics.  Jackson  had  bent  all  the
strength  of  his  will  on  a  single  point.  That  was,  to
meet  and  drive  off  the  redcoats.  Most  of  the  men —
except  perhaps  those  big  buckskin  riflemen  from  Ten-
nessee and  Mississippi — would  have  preferred  to  fight
by  daylight.  But  they  were  all  so  swayed  by  the  con-
tagion of  Jackson's  spirit  that  they  were  ready  to  fight
anyhow."

"It  was  marvellous,"  pursues  Nolte,  "to  witness
the  morale  and  elan  of  our  men,  raw  militia  as  they
were.  Not  forty  men  in  Planche's  battalion  had  ever
seen  a  gun  fired  in  anger — unless,  maybe,  in  a  duel.  But
now,  inspired  by  Jackson's  words,  and  still  more  by  his
majestic  mien  as  he  rode  slowly  to  and  fro  among  us,
not  one  man  seemed  to  remember  that  the  soldiers  out
in  front  of  us  were  the  same  who  had  overrun  Spain
and  carried  the  lion-flag  of  England  triumphant  through
France  to  Bordeaux !  'Wellington's  veterans'  they  were,
indeed,  but  our  untried  militia  seemed  to  have  forgotten
it  under  the  spell  of  the  wonderful  Jackson!

"My  own  situation  was,  perhaps,  unique.  By  birth
a  North  German;  by  commercial  connection,  English;
by  residence  only  and  in  business  capacity,  an  American.
