The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Raid Of The Guerilla, by
Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

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Title: The Raid Of The Guerilla
1911

Author: Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

Release Date: November 19, 2007 [EBook #23548]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RAID OF THE GUERILLA ***

Produced by David Widger

THE RAID OF THE GUERILLA

By Charles Egbert Craddock

1911

Judgment day was coming to Tanglefoot Cove--somewhat in advance of the
expectation of the rest of the world. Immediate doom impended. A certain
noted guerilla, commanding a reckless troop, had declared a stern
intention of raiding this secluded nook among the Great Smoky Mountains,
and its denizens could but tremble at the menace.

Few and feeble folk were they. The volunteering spirit rife in the early
days of the Civil War had wrought the first depletion in the number.
Then came, as time wore on, the rigors of the conscription, with an
extension of the limits of age from the very young to the verge of the
venerable, thus robbing, as was said, both the cradle and the grave.
Now only the ancient weaklings and the frail callow remained of the male
population among the women and girls, who seemed mere supernumeraries in
the scheme of creation, rated by the fitness to bear arms.

So feeble a community of non-combatants might hardly compass a warlike
affront calculated to warrant reprisal, but the predominant Union spirit
of East Tennessee was all a-pulse in the Cove, and the deed was no
trifle.

"'T war Ethelindy's deed," her grandfather mumbled, his quivering lips
close to the knob of his stick, on which his palsied, veinous hands
trembled as he sat in his armchair on the broad hearth of the main room
in his little log cabin.

Ethelinda Brusie glanced quickly, furtively, at his pondering, wrinkled
old face under the broad brim of his white wool hat, which he still
wore, though indoors and with the night well advanced. Then she fixed
her anxious, excited blue eyes once more on the flare of the fire.

"Lawd! ye jes' now f 'und that out, dad?" exclaimed her widowed mothe