Turn to the map of Virginia on the opposite page and find the places which I have mentioned, and you will understand the plan at once.
MAP OF VIRGINIA AND Adjacent States.
Now, the Confederate army was much smaller than the Federal army, because the Southern States were thinly settled, while the North contained very many large cities and had the world from which to draw supplies of men as well as munitions of war.
General Beauregard.
The North also was rich, because it had the treasury of the United States, while the South was poor in both money and arms, and had the outside world closed against her.
So the Confederate leaders had to use great skill in meeting such large armies with so few men.
You remember that in the last chapter I told how General Johnston, at Winchester, with a small force was watching General Patterson. Now, just across the mountains, sixty miles southeast, at Manassas, Beauregard (bo-re-gard), another famous Southern general, was facing a large Northern army under General McDowell. This army was thirty-five thousand strong, while the Confederates had only twenty-eight thousand men. General McDowell’s army was composed of the best soldiers in the Northern States, and they had splendid fire-arms, artillery, uniforms, and tents—in fact, all that money could buy to make them do good service in the field.
On the other hand, the Confederates were poorly clad and had old muskets and cannon; many of the cavalry had only the shot-guns which they had used for hunting in their boyhood days.