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Book, page 21 / 69 to persecute him, and to destroy his usefulness with the army. These men affected to know a great deal about war; but I noticed, my son, that they were very unwilling to shoulder a musket and face the enemy. They wanted General George to move on in the middle of winter, drive Mr. Beauregard out of Manassas, and take Richmond. And all this while the mud was so deep that he could not drag his wagons through it. George very sensibly refused to destroy his army in this way. Indeed, he foresaw that to follow their advice would be to bring the nation to grief a second time. This increased the discontent and opposition of his enemies, who regarded it a great grievance that a general would not follow their advice. But George was not to be driven into the mud by a set of meddlesome civilians, who knew nothing about war. And to show them that he was not, he kept his army quiet, on the banks of the Potomac, all winter. And in this position he contemplated Mr. Beauregard, and Mr. Beauregard contemplated him, separated by twenty miles of mud. We had not got our war eyes open then, my son. In truth, we had but a very imperfect idea of what an amount of resistance a resolute and determined foe, standing on the defensive, can offer. When it was spring, and the birds had come back to us, and the prospect looked bright and cheering, and the hopes of the nation ran high, George mounted his horse, and, picking up his army, moved out in the direction of Richmond, taking the overland route. He sent word to Mr Beauregard to wait until he came and he would thrash him out of Manassas. But Mr. Beauregard was not inclined to accommodate George with a fight at that particular point, where his elbows were so exposed, and stepped quietly out by the back door before George got there. In short, all George saw of Mr. Beauregard and his men was the tails of their coats and the heels of their boots, away in the shadowy distance. People said Mr. Beauregard did not do the clean thing to slip away in such a manner. And there were those who scolded General George for letting him get off in this shabby way; but how he was to prevent it I never could see. Mr. Beauregard was kind enough to leave us an army of log houses, and his smouldering camp fires, around which a number of sooty negroes were grouped, shivering and forlorn. And these were all we had to be thankful to him for.
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