The Raid of the Guerilla | Page 8

had orders, as Ackert had found means of knowing, to join the main body without delay, and his chief aim was to shake off this persistent pursuit with which a far inferior force had harassed his march. But for his fortuitous discovery of the underground exit from the basin of Tanglefoot Cove, Ackert, ambushed without, would have encountered and defeated the regulars in detail as they clambered in detachments up the unaccustomed steeps of the mountain road, the woods elsewhere being almost impassable jungles of laurel.
Success would have meant more to Ackert than the value of the service to the cause, than the tumultuous afflatus of victory, than the spirit of strife to the born soldier. There had been kindled in his heart a great and fiery ambition; he was one of the examples of an untaught military genius of which the Civil War elicited a few notable and amazing instances. There had been naught in his career heretofore to suggest this unaccountable gift, to foster its development. He was the son of a small farmer, only moderately well-to-do; he had the very limited education which a restricted and remote rural region afforded its youth; he had entered the Confederate army as a private soldier, with no sense of special fitness, no expectation of personal advancement, only carried on the wave of popular enthusiasm. But from the beginning his quality had been felt; he had risen from grade to grade, and now with a detached body of horse and flying artillery his exploits were beginning to attract the attention of corps commanders on both sides, to the gratulation of friends and the growing respect of foes. He seemed endowed with the wings of the wind; to-day he was tearing up railroad tracks in the lowlands to impede the reinforcements of an army; to-morrow the force sent with the express intention of placing a period to those mischievous activities heard of his feats in burning bridges and cutting trestles in remote sections of the mountains. The probabilities could keep no terms with him, and he baffled prophecy. He had a quick invention--a talent for expedients. He appeared suddenly when least expected and where his presence seemed impossible. He had a gift of military intuition. He seemed to know the enemy's plans before they were matured; and ere a move was made to put them into execution he was on the ground with troublous obstacles to forestall the event in its very inception. He maintained a discipline to many commanders impossible. His troops had a unity of spirit that might well animate an individual. They endured long fasts, made wonderful forced marches on occasion--all day in the saddle and nodding to the pommel all night; it was even said they fought to such exhaustion that when dismounted the front rank, lying in line of battle prone upon the ground, would fall asleep between volleys, and that the second rank, kneeling to fire above them, had orders to stir them with their carbines to insure regularity of the musketry. He had the humbler yet even more necessary equipment for military success. He could forage his troops in barren opportunities; they somehow kept clothed and armed at the minimum of expense. Did he lack ammunition--he made shift to capture a supply for his little Par-rott guns that barked like fierce dogs at the rear-guard of an enemy or protected his own retreat when it jumped with his plans to compass a speedy withdrawal himself. His horses were well groomed, well fed, fine travellers, and many showed the brand U.S., for he could mount his troop when need required from the corrals of an unsuspecting encampment. He was the ideal guerilla, of infinite service to his faction in small, significant operations of disproportioned importance.
What wonder that his name was rife in rumors which flew about the country; that soon it was not only "the grapevine telegraph" that vibrated with the sound, but he was mentioned in official despatches; nay, on one signal occasion the importance of his dashing exploit was recognized by the commander of the Army Corps in a general order published to specially commend it. Naturally his spirit rose to meet these expanding liberties of achievement. He looked for further promotion--for eminence. In a vague glimmer, growing ever stronger and clearer, he could see himself in the astral splendor of the official stars of a major-general--for in the far day of the anticipated success of the Confederacy he looked to be an officer of the line.
And now suddenly this light was dimmed; his laurels were wilting. What prestige would the capture of Tolhurst have conferred! Never had a golden opportunity like this been lost--by what uncovenanted chance had Tolhurst escaped!
"He must have had a guide! Right here in the Cove!" Ackert exclaimed. "Nobody