THIS, my son, is an exact portrait of the general who sat behind the
great sand heaps at Yorktown, smoking his pipe, and gave our George
so much trouble. George and he had been old friends and playmates at
school, where they had played pitch and toss in a harmless way. So
it is natural to suppose they knew each other's game perfectly well.
George took the hint given him by the old women along the road, and
when he got to Yorktown he saw clear enough that his old friend
Johnston was playing a game of brag with his big sand hills. And to
show Mr. Johnston that he was not to be outdone in that line of art,
George, when he had settled his army down in the soft ground, went
to work satisfying the nation that he could build just as big sand
heaps as any other general. In short, my son, George found himself
in a worse predicament than he was in at Manassas, for his friend
Johnston had a large army, and stronger works than Mr. Beauregard
left behind him. So his army laid down its guns, and took up the
spade, and went largely into the ditching and dyking business. He
made sand heaps bigger than Mr. Johnston's, and stretched them all
the way across the Peninsula, so that there was no getting on either
side of him. And when he had done this he mounted them with the
biggest cannon, which he intended to fire when he got them all up;
so as to make a magnificent display of substantial fire-works, and
in that way frighten Mr. Johnston out of town. So careful was George
not to do his old friend any bodily injury before he got all his
guns mounted, that he would only exchange compliments with him at
morning and evening, when few shells would be tossed backward and
forward, just to preserve what was called the etiquette of war. I