ons of the
Federal armies, confusing their plans by capturing dispatches,
destroying supply trains, subjecting their outposts to the wear and
tear of a perpetual skirmish, in short, inflicting all the mischief
possible for a small body of cavalry moving rapidly from point to
point on the communications of an army.

He believed that by incessant attacks he could compel the enemy either
greatly to contract his lines or to reinforce them, both of which
would have been of great advantage to the Southern cause. By assuming
the aggressive, a rule from which he not once departed, he could force
the enemy to guard a hundred points, leaving himself free to select
any one of them for attack.

But the theories, purposes, and methods of this peer of partisan
leaders is best explained by himself. Simply and unostentatiously, but
withal convincingly, expressed, they give to the man and his deeds the
unmistakable semblance of fairness and legitimacy. These, together
with his masterly defense of partisan warfare, follow in modified and
disconnected form:

"The military value of a partisan's work is not measured by
the amount of property destroyed, or the number of men
killed or captured, but by the number he keeps watching.
Every soldier withdrawn from the front to guard the rear of
an army is so much taken from its fighting strength.

"I endeavored, as far as I was able, to diminish this
aggressive power of the army of the Potomac, by compelling
it to keep a large force on the defensive. I assailed its
rear, for there was its most vulnerable point. My men had no
camps. If they had gone into camp, they would soon have all
been captured.... A blow would be struck at a weak or
unguarded point, and then a quick retreat. The alarm would
spread through the sleeping camp, the long roll would be
beaten or the bugles would sound to horse, there would be
mounting in hot haste and a rapid pursuit. But the partisans
generally got off with their prey. Their pursuers were
striking at an invisible foe. I often sent small squads at
night to attack and run in the pickets along a line of
several miles. Of course, these alarms were very annoying,
for no human being knows how sweet sleep is but a soldier. I
wanted to use and consume the Northern cavalry in hard work.
I have often thought that their fierce hostility to me was
more on a