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 xii PREFACE

original leave was granted. He took special pains to tell me, when I called to find out about Jackson's move- ments, in order to judge whether I had better stay in Richmond any longer waiting for a battle, that he could not grant me leave except on surgeon's certificate ; that was * his rule,' he said. I told him I did n't come to ask for leave, but to get information upon which to determine whether I would yield to the advice of the surgeons and leave the city, adding that I had already put it off for ten days or more in anticipation of active operations, and was getting worse, instead of better. In a semi-pious, semi-official, and altogether disagreeable manner, he commenced regretting that I had n't gone sooner ; con- sidered that the army had lost my services for ten days unnecessarily — and other like stuff. We *will bide our time.' All I want is success to the cause ; but there is a limit beyond which forbearance ceases to be a virtue, and if provoked much further I will tear the mask off of some who think themselves wonderfully successful in covering up their tracks." (O. R., vol. io8, p. 593.)

Some readers may, perhaps, be surprised, in a volume of Confederate portraits, to find no portrait of either of the two chief Confederates, next to Lee, Davis and Jackson. I have, however, already dealt with these dis- tinguished figures in the chapters on ** Lee and Davis " and " Lee and Jackson " in Lee the American^ and I felt that to introduce them here would simply mean a con- siderable repetition of the earlier studies.

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