Stonewall Jackson, in addition to being General Lee's "right hand," was also probably his most combative; his brilliant tactics were always backed up by a determined will not to just defeat but annihilate the Federal army. Consider the following incident related by Rev. R. L. Dabney, the great southern Presbyterian minister and Jackson's chief of staff. The incident described is a skirmish just prior to the battle of Port Republic during the Valley campaign of 1862, when one of Jackson's subordinates decimated an enemy unit.

"Colonel Patton, while reporting the events of the day to the General, at nightfall, remarked that he saw his party of foes shot down with regret. [Jackson] seemed to make no note of these words at the time, but pursued his minute inquiries into all the particulars of the skirmish. After the official conversation was ended, he asked, 'Colonel, why do you say that you saw those Federal soldiers fall with regret?' It was replied, that they exhibited more vigor and courage that anything which had been attempted by any part of the Federal army; and that a natural sympathy with brave men led to the wish that, in the fortunes of the fight, their lives might have been saved.

The General remarked, 'No; shoot them all. I do not wish them to be brave.'"

-R. L. Dabney, Life and Campaigns of Lieut. Gen. T.J. (Stonewall) Jackson