prestige of wealth and a long family being denied them—­still upon the battlefield they were any man’s equal.  On the march or the suffering in camp, they were the peers of the noblest, and when facing death or experiencing its pangs they knew no superiors.  Such being the feelings and sentiments of those born in the humbler stations of life, what must have been the goal of those already fortune’s favorites, with a high or aristocratic birth, wealth, education, and a long line of illustrious ancestors, all to stimulate them to deeds of prowess and unparalleled heroism?  Such were the men to make the name of South Carolina glorious, and that of “Kershaw” immortal.  How many of these noble souls died that their country might be free? the name of her people great?  In the former they lost, as the ends for which they fought and died were never consummated.  To-day, after nearly a half century has passed, when we look around among the young and see the decadence of chivalry and noble aspirations, the decline of homage to women, want of integrity to men, want of truth and honor, individually and politically, are we not inclined, at times, to think those men died in vain?  We gained the shadow; have we the substance?  We gained an unparalleled prestige for courage, but are the people to-day better morally, socially, and politically?  Let the world answer.  The days of knight-errantry had their decadence; may not the days of the South’s chivalry have theirs?

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CHAPTER IX

Battle of Seven Pines—­Seven Days’ Fight Around Richmond.

It was the intention of General Johnston to fall back slowly before McClellan, drawing him away from his base, then when the Federal Corps become separated in their marches, to concentrate his forces, turn and crush him at one blow.  The low, swampy, and wooded condition of the country from Yorktown up the Peninsula would not admit of the handling of the troops, nor was there any place for artillery practice to be effective.  Now that he had his forces all on the South side of the Chickahominy, and the lands more rolling and firm, he began to contemplate a change in his tactics.  Ewell, with several detached regiments under Whiting, had been sent in the Valley to re-enforce that fiery meteor, Stonewall Jackson, who was flying through the Shenandoah Valley and the gorges of the Blue Ridge like a cyclone, and General Johnston wished Jackson to so crush his enemy that his troops could be concentrated with his own before Richmond.  But the authorities at Richmond thought otherwise.  It is true Jackson had been worsted at Kernstown by Shields, but his masterly movements against Banks, Fremont, Siegle, and others, gave him such prestige as to make his name almost indispensable to our army.  McDowell, with forty thousand men, lay at Fredericksburg, with nothing in his front but a few squadrons of cavalry and some infantry regiments.  Johnston was thus