But something else emerged on that painful road back home. It was a quality in Jackson’s character that is essential to an understanding of his subsequent military successes. The quality had probably always been there but now it suddenly billowed out into full view. That quality was willpower. Not the ordinary kind. Nothing normal or even natural. This was superhuman. This was virtually demonic. This was sheer, total, concentrated determination to achieve his ends. So if he determined to march his men back to Nashville he would get them there even if it meant carrying every last one of them on
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