What he had done did not seem quite plausible. He had twice eluded Union forces that had been sent to destroy him. He had moved farther and faster and more secretly than anyone in the Union high command had believed possible and had defeated Union forces more than one hundred miles apart. He had then pursued his helpless quarries for thirty and thirty-five miles, respectively. He had driven Banks clean out of the South. None of this could be explained by conventional notions of warfare, certainly not by warfare as it was being practiced by any Union commanders of the period. There was
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