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Subsequently in the conversation, General Longstreet said:
"I suggested to General Lee that Stonewall Jackson be sent to the Trans-Mississippi instead of Kirby Smith, as the best fitted among all the Confederate generals to make headway against the Federals in that region. The suggestion met with General Lee's approbation, but Lee wanted Jackson himself."
This was new, and with considerable surprise I asked: "Why did you assume that Jackson was better equipped for command in the Western country, general, than any of your other officers?"
"He was the very man to organize a great war over there. He would have marched all over Missouri, invaded Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa. In fact the very vastness of the theater was well calculated to sharpen his faculties and give scope to Jackson's peculiar military talents. His rapid style of campaigning, suddenly appearing at remote and unexpected points, would have demoralized the Federals."
Source: Reprinted from the
Washington Post of June 1893, this article appeared in
The Times Dispatch. (Richmond, VA.), November 12, 1911, page 3.