At that moment the Acadian band began to play, and it played the merriest waltz it knew. Jackson gazed at it, took a lemon from his pocket and began to suck the juice from it meditatively. The officer stood before him in some embarrassment.
“Aren’t they rather thoughtless for such serious work as war?” asked the Presbyterian general.
“I am confident, sir, that their natural gayety will not impair their value as soldiers.”
Jackson put the end of the lemon back in his mouth and drew some juice from it. The colonel bowed and retired. Then Jackson beckoned to Harry, who stood by.
“Follow him and tell him,” he said, “that the band can play as much as it likes. I noticed, too, that it plays well.”
Jackson smiled and Harry hurried after the officer, who flushed with gratification, when the message was delivered to him.
“I’ll tell it to the men,” he said, “and they’ll fight all the better for it.”
That night it was a formidable army that slept in the fields on either side of the turnpike, and in the silence and the dark, Stonewall Jackson was preparing to launch the thunderbolt.