Another interview with Jackson.
I hurried to
General Jackson to report, finding him at the same place.
The infantry troops were called to attention, and forming in column in the pike, the artillery all hitched up and the men at the guns ready to move at a moment's notice, I saw we were on the eve of something very important.
I hastened on to
General Jackson and made my report of the situation as I saw it. He listened very attentively.
The first question he asked in regard to the farm road was, ‘Could you get artillery up it?’
‘Oh! yes,’ I answered, ‘easily.’
‘Could you get it back,’ was the next question.
‘Certainly,’ I replied, ‘easy enough.’
‘But if you were in a great hurry, could you do it so easily?’
Now I told him I did not know so well about that.
He then asked me how many guns I saw in the fortifications.
On my reply to him—for I had counted them—he asked me how did I know they were real cannon or ‘shams.’
I told him I could not be sure of that, but they looked exactly like real ones.
It struck me that he was examining me as much to see if I had really been where he sent me, so as to determine how far he could use me in the future, for
General Jackson knew all that country thoroughly.
After I was through with my report, almost immediately he said, ‘We will not go that,’ meaning, of course, up the hill road.
